Some days I can’t seem to find the groove. I wake up a couple hours before heading to work so that I can write, and some days I just stare blankly at the screen. As if my mind were allergic to ideas.
Then there are the times the Muses trip over each other, trying to crowd into that limited space I call my mind. I’ll start one story, then an idea for another will come and crowd out the first. That which seemed so damned urgent can now wait until I get these words down. But then another idea bursts in, unannounced.
I wonder if other writers experience this. I once knew a media professor who smoked a pipe. He once said that if he couldn’t find the tobacco he liked he could resort to cigars. “Or even cigarettes.” I’ve never smoked. I don’t see the need to, but his words reminded me of the behavior of my Muses.
Some days I work on my novels (my pipe). I prefer to write long, and I have completed six novels over the years. Other days I write short stories. I’ve got dozens of these lying around, mostly unpublished. Or poems. I wrote a lot of poetry as a young man, and I still think in poems from time to time.
Blog posts will suffice if none of my other writing forms suggest themselves. Or a letter to a fellow writer. Words, no matter what, will find a way out of me.
I’ve been experiencing a surfeit of ideas lately. I can’t seem to get one story finished without another intruding onto its territory. Not that I’m complaining. Stories, like fine wine, can sit on the shelf for a long while and age with dignity. I try to keep a register so that I don’t forget they’re there. Their draw is irresistible.
Ironically, the Muses overlap when workaday life gets busy. It’s as if they know you’ll barely have time to kiss them before rushing off to work. Nothing causes the death of creativity more effectively than business.
Gather round, my Muses. Just try not to speak all at once.
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