Last week, Roxanne St. Claire had a fantastic post over on Murder She Writes about her muse, or lack thereof. Her position is that the muse isn’t real but a kick in the pants friend to lean on is what most authors depend on.
I agree.
Mostly.
I have a muse. It’s not something that’s separate from me or a being all its own that shimmers around my brain and tells me what to write. But I most definitely have a muse. Mine has been decidedly crankly lately. Last week, I posted about needing to refill my well. My inspiration seemed to have run out on my military romances for a minute. I honest to God tried all of my tricks for getting back into my story after the revisions for my agent. I was stuck. I simply ran out of I give a damn for that particular book (not the one I sent to my agent, the other one)
When it got right down to it, I’d pulled a whole lot of military angst out of my well over the last few months. I rewrote After the War, completely, from scratch. I rewrote Burning Out, compleletly, from scratch. Both projects were easily enough rewritten because I opted to keep nothing from the previous incarnations except the characters and even most of those were gone or revamped. I started writing Derrick’s story, which I posted the opening pages on my blog. That was dark and deep and I know exactly where it’s going but I just can’t seem to get into his head right now.
I feel guilty on those days that I’m not writing but I really had nothing to give. So you know what?
I put them away. I set aside the military stuff for a time. I figured my agent has a solid copy now on the first book and my CP has the second book. Book three can go on the shelf for a little while until I get refilled. In the mean time, my paranormal has been talking to me.
Actually, it’s been whispering to me out of the darkness, which makes for a seriously creepy walk to the showers at midnight in the pitch black that is the Mosul night. But its been occupying my thoughts and so I started rereading. Opened the word document so that I can comment like I was CPing someone else’s work. And yeah, it needs ton of work. But the cool part is that I’ve brainstormed what happens in the next two books, which makes the first book easier to reform into something somewhat coherent.
The very best part, though, that made my muse incredibly happy was finding new music. It’s dark and deep and EXACTLY what I need to be listening to in order to write this paranormal.
My muse is not a separate thing but it is tied into certain habits and the one habit guaranteed to make me and my muse deliriously happy enough to crank out serious revisions is good tunes. Tunes that I can’t get out of my head are the perfect thing for me to write to. I don’t know why but there is a direct correlation to my having music stuck in my head and my level of productivity. NOT creativity, because that comes with the productivity. But when I get something stuck in my head, it’s a good sign that I’ve got some serious word counts coming.
Thank you Signs of Betrayal for a rocking good album and for kick starting my muse!
