From the Wilds of Creation

Blog! There you are! You stayed there, right where I left you and you kept my seat warm. I am grateful.

I am especially grateful BECAUSE there has been a reason I have not been blogging, and now I CAN.

I made myself a rule that I could not blog (or do anything else that is fun, basically) unless I was caught up for the day on my Nanowrimo word count. Then I proceeded to be behind the curve all stinkin' November long.

Except now. Except today. Because today I am ahead. I am caught up and since caught up is one whole step behind the preferable comforts of being ahead, I took that step. For right now, I am victorious. Later? Eh. We'll see.

Writing this month has been a challenge. Yes, Nanowrimo is a challenging experience in and of itself, but it has been extra challenging given all of the life-bits fate has seen fit to throw at me. Given the choice to sink or swim, I continue swimming. Sometimes I feel like I'm going with a half-drowned doggie paddle, but I'm not going under just yet.

It has been a full month and it is not over just yet. I am hoping that by the time December rolls around, the world will have one more unfinished mess of a novel in it, the guilt monkeys currently residing in my brain will be through with their feast and leave me a few neurons for my own personal use, and I will be able to use contractions properly again (why use one word when it can so easily be two?).

Until then, I have a new muse on the case, and there is still plenty of work to do!

There's yer problem: Muse asleep on the job. Amateur.

Inspiration Monday: Suicide Perch

This is Boo.

 

Boo is my Teacup Panther. She wears a lot of hats: professional muse, flesh-eating feline, and cat litter connoisseur. (Never again, Fresh Step. Never. Again.)

Boo is also stupidly brave. This is Boo sitting atop what Husband and I now call the Suicide Perch.

Suicide Perch

It looks like a great place for Boo to sit until you look over the edge of that banister and realize that there is nothing over there except the tile floor. The hard tile floor that is a loooong way down in kitty miles.

And yet, this is her second favorite place to sit in the house. She doesn't care that one false move would render her a furry pancake with fangs. She just knows that this is where she wants to sit, darn it, and we stupid humans had better get over it. (And while we're at it, we should lay off the coffee and get a massage. Geez, don't humans know how to relax?)

The thing Boo knows and that we can't get our heads around is that to her, the risk is worth it. That spot has some allure for her that brings her more value than the fear of falling can negate. (Let's pretend here that she actually has a fear of falling. In reality, this cat fears nothing. Nothing.)

Lately, it has become even more clearly evident to me that in order to crank out the kind of work I can be proud of, I have to stop being a chicken.

My friends, I am such a chicken.

It has only been lately that I have finally internalized the fact that there is no way around it. If I am ever going to write anything that will resonate with people deep on their insides (which is the best place for people to resonate), I have to put aside the shyness, swallow my pride, and crush the fear.

Basically, I have to take a cue from the cat and find a vein of stupid courage to sit on my own Suicide Perch, spit over the edge, and make some art.

Know what? I'm still a little afraid to shift my weight or look down too long, but it's kinda working.

What does the Suicide Perch mean to you? What's on the other side? What about it has value to outweigh the risk?

If there is something out there you just can't write about, then grab up a pen and do it anyway. Your work will thank you.

What have you got to lose? Cats have nine lives, but writers have as many as it takes to get it right.

On Muses

Writers are always going on about their muses, what kind of mood their muses are in, what their muses ate for breakfast, how awesome Muse the band is (they are!), and how to get their stubborn muses to cooperate.

Oh, those stubborn muses. Technically, I have two of them. There's Black Muse and Brown Muse, otherwise known as Boo and Bella.

 

These two serve me well, and they're darn cute. When I'm having trouble writing, I try to blame them. They look at me with patient, innocent eyes...well, the cat's eyes are rarely innocent, but that's beside the point...and I realize that there's no one to blame for the words not getting onto paper but myself.
 
Wait a minute. Isn't the point of having a muse to have someone to blame when the writing doesn't work out? Someone to give credit when that magical moment happens and the words are flowing faster than you can write them? I'm not sure I'm ready for this. Besides, I'm not trying to put Boo and Bella out of a job here. They're unionized.

But what if they're right? What if it is really just my own fault for not getting the words down on paper? 

Nah.

Maybe the answer is not to give up on muses altogether--where's the romance in that?--but that I need more muses. Maybe there are already applications on file and all I need to do is pull some resumes. 

Today I found a muse in the form of a 51 year old man who has been homeless for the last 18 years. Today, for the first time in probably a very, very long time, he asked for help. Not the little kind of help like, "Will you please pass me a napkin?" or, "Can someone please make her stop reading her novel to me?" This was the real kind of help, the kind that hurts, the kind that makes you feel weak even though you know that all you're really doing is taking your hands away from a wound and hoping your insides won't fall out. His didn't, and they won't, but it doesn't mean that it won't feel like it sometimes. It's a long road for him. He'll change his mind. But, for probably the first time in his life, he'll change it back and he knows that he has the support behind him to eventually change it and keep it that way. 

I can't think of a better muse than that for today. I'm going to borrow his energy, his trepidation, his mischief, and his courage and do my very best to infuse it into my writing. I don't care if what I'm writing is a blurb for a caption contest, we can all use a little of what he demonstrated today. 

There are muses among us, as plentiful as the inspiration that can be plucked from the trees. Sometimes I wonder why everyone isn't an artist of some sort. Maybe they are and I just haven't deciphered their mediums.