A Muse Meant
Last year, when I was doing a SoulPerSuit bible study with Erin, she asked me to share about my muse. So this week, when my publisher asked me to write a post in response to one of their editor's posts over on Behind the Books, I remembered some of what I told Erin so long ago...
A Muse Meant
How about you? Who, or what, is your muse?
Blond-Haired Doll photo, by Sonia.
NEWS ON CHARITY:
Concerns for Prayer
Labels: writing inspiration, writing muse
posted by L.L. Barkat at 10:27 AM
11 Comments:
I completely identified with the list of assorted muses you mentioned in the linked-to blog. My muses are all ordinary people, often in ordinary situations, who somehow touch the part of me that longs to express our shared humanity. As much as I might really enjoy a tall, dark and handsome and somewhat more mythical muse who enjoyed making (chaste and appropriate, of course) house calls, I don't think I would trade the ordinary, given the chance.
Even in times of relative silence on the writing front (my blog is gathering dust at present), it isn't a lack of muse that stills my pen. Then, it's something else: usually the conviction that the story I want to tell is somehow too personal, too real to me or to someone else. Then I write in secret or stew on the possibilities and wait for time to become right for reading aloud.
My muse is my friend LK. He's a smart guy, a Christian, a well-rounded person, a nice guy, and at times a perfectionist. He claims he's not a social person but he sure fools me. Whenever he and I sit down with a bunch of others during lunch, there are just so many ideas to write about.
Love that piece.
My muse is a man I met a year and a half ago. I know little about him, and I know everything about him. I'll never see him again, but he's part of my life. Everyday. We share coffee or tea and chat about whatever comes to mind--the weather, writing, arctic disasters. I like him so much, I gave into him--he became a character in my WIP. I'm not sure I'd suggest allowing your muse and your character to become one and the same, but he enjoyed the adventure and is now ready to return to my side with a cup of Earl Grey.
My muse is my wife...but I also observe many others in my life who inspire me with unique qualities God has placed in them
will look forward to reading about muses - can I have one for science writing - I could surely use one!
as to my blog, no time to post anything thoughtful, so no one has had anything else here to comment on - and they seem to find responding to each other either enjoyable or amusing - so I have left it open for comments.
I think it has most to do with having a forum where (as long as they were civil to one another) opposite sides could express themselves openly. As with ESI - I always appreciate knowing you pop in even if you don't speak (although I would greatly prefer you did - I draw encouragement from the way you see things, especially the "bad" things of life) with such redemptive quality.
oops, misplaced ) - please read as at the end of the sentence.
Interesting question, L.L. Who is my muse? In gradiose terms, I'll invoke the Holy Spirit like Milton: the "Heav'nly Muse, that on the secret top / Of Oreb, or of Sinai, didst inspire / That Shepherd, who first taught the chosen Seed, / In the Beginning how the Heav'ns and Earth / Rose out of Chaos."
But that's really too fancy for me. My actual muse is much simpler--a deadline.
Is it vain to say my most often used muse this past year or two has been that face staring back at me from the mirror? It seems the soil has been particularly rich this year & has led me to places in my writing and in my spirit I could not have imagined.
I'm surrounded by some of the muses you describe too: the man at the coffeeshop, the woman in the row behind me at church, the teary-eyed girl on the park bench. Muses are everywhere.
Is this too easy an answer? ;o)
Blessings to you.
Nikki... good to hear from you! It's funny, isn't it, what can motivate us to write? So many people think that inspiration is hard to find. But there it is, all around us, in the ordinary things as you say.
Rudy... LK must be a wonderful person. What kinds of ideas does he particularly inspire in you?
Heather... oh, I was thinking you were going to say your husband. Then I realized, no! Does hubby mind? (I seem to remember that the man was old though, wasn't he? Or am I remembering a different character?)
Every Square... that is very sweet.
Halfmom... so your muse is a social network?
Mark... yes, the Holy Spirit. Of course. And I love that quote. Now, the deadline is also one of my muses, but I don't often think about it that way (perhaps because it lacks a sense of the Romantic!)
Kirsten... that's the thing with muses. We need to allow ourselves to be captured by what works for us... whether it's that reflection or the impending deadline. I wonder, if like Halfmom started to note, if other types of work involve "muses" too. In other words, what do we mean by "muse"? Can anybody get one? Do they cost much or are they free?
oh dear me, I hope not. though my blog does seem to have become something of an (un)social network at present. I'm afraid that if there's not a burning idea, pushing to develop a post is just dry and dead - it actually takes some intervention of the Holy Spirit I think just to get me to write anything, even science - much less the blog
I just came from that other post. I didn't know what "soup to nuts" meant. It's kinda like "from the egg to apples." Okay, I didn't know what THAT meant, either.
My muse? Well, being blessed by ADD, my sails are always ready to take off, no matter which way the wind blows. It's harder for me to stay on task, what with all these blondies talking at the same time...
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