My Muse

My friend decided to share her views about her muse. I'm not terribly fond of Muse's in general. Or the idea that you need some bizarre pixie sitting on your shoulder whispering ideas. Sometimes you need to interrogate a character (I recommend bamboo slivers and waterboarding), but "waiting for my muse" is no excuse. It you're a writer, you write.

Snow, sleet, green things with teeth, Mrs. Cake, werewolves, and toddlers... it doesn't matter if you've lost a limb, are losing blood, or in labor with your 16th child. You write. You write for the same reason you breath, because brain loss will occur otherwise.

And whiny readers who want the next installment. Let's not forget them.

Here is Michelle's view on muses....

And here is mine.... (also found in the comments section of her blog)

My Muse is a cowering, sniveling, gagged, brat in the bottom of the back dungeon. A number of years ago, while Musey was handing me another long list of crazed ideas, I saw the duct tape and had an idea of my own.

Now Musey dwells in darkness. I can hear him whimpering sometimes.

He tried to get out at first, demanding attention, demanding stories be written. But they were incoherent and all over the place.

I took a baseball bat to Musey. He's a bit bruised, a cracked rib or two that's healing badly. But he finally shut up. He and I have an agreement now, he keeps his yap shut, and I don't feed him in small pieces to the zombies.

The thing is, I don't need a muse, he's an intrusion. I'm a creator by nature, perhaps because I'm female and perhaps because I have an ironclad ego that makes it easy to assume that the universe will rearrange myself to suit my whims.In my lovely tower of creation where my minions and armies lurk, the muse has no place. He's a creature of fancy, not facts.

And I love nothing better than to have my factoid minions run in and whisper on bended-knee, "Oh Mistress, another scientist has gone and proved your theory for variable speed of lights and non-spacial communication. We have citations, mistress, for your latest work in progress."

In the background I hear Musey crying softly. Poor boy. All he ever could offer was, "I like the color green!" Poor weak fool. If I wanted a color scheme I'd ask my characters, not some nascent creature that wants to dance and play.

*cracks whip and looks down nose at cowering character*

Around here, everyone does as *I* say.