My Muse can bite me.
If she wants to run off and join the Muse circus instead of sit down and write, I’m OK with that now. I can put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard just fine without her.
The writing I do when she runs off and leaves me on my own may not be my best prose. And I may have to bludgeon every word and nail it to the sentence before it regains consciousness and runs away.
But I don’t need her fickle inspiration any more.
Don’t get me wrong. I love it when she grabs my hand and yanks me down some barely perceptible rabbit trail in my imagination. I’ve found all sorts of beautiful, dark or just completely whacked out, mental gardens under her (mis)guidance.
But I’ve also found that sort of inspiration on my own by taking a machete to the weeds of my mind and hacking my own path to those enchanted forests of ideas. It just takes a little longer and I tend to leave a pile of kindling and uprooted trees behind me.
I admit that writing tends to go a little faster, smoother, when she’s around. I seem to know exactly what to say and how to say it. But now when she takes off for parts unknown, leaving my word-well high and dry, I pull out her clunky cousins; Dictionary and Thesaurus.
Between the three of us, we can usually find a suitable turn of phrase. And if we can’t, I step away for a few minutes and sharpen my mental machete on some logic problems. When I return to the work-in-progress, the Muse is either back or I’m capable of plodding along well enough on my own.
Though I’ll always welcome my Muse on my creative adventures, she’s no longer in charge of the journey. We’re sharing the reins now.
So get on the horse, honey, or get out of the way. There’s writing to be done.