A dialog with my muse

Today I struggled to have a word with my muse. The conversation went something like this.

Hey there Muse

: Go away

That’s not fair. I need your help.

: I’m tired.

What?

: I have a headache?

You know what I like about you?

: My charming personality?

That and you’re not made of slugs and puppy dog tales.

: You really know how to charm a muse, but sweet words won’t help you. You used me up this week on the new BUILD framework at the office. You know what code work does to me.

Seriously, I need help. I want to work on The Novel, but nothing’s coming. That and I’m having a lot of second thoughts.

: I think you should just go and play some Overlord instead.

How’s that going to help?

: It won’t help you write, but it’ll let me finish my nap.

I’m trying to be serious here. I’m having a problem with the novel I started in that contest I swore I would not name again for a while.

: Didn’t you already break that promise here?

That’s not the point. The point is I need your help. When I write for quantity, its ok to toss out a dozen characters at once – even if each of them only gets 4 thousand words, that’s enough to carry me over. But when I go back to try and finish it, there’s too many people doing too many things.

: I thought you fixed that. You got rid of Heather.

That helped. Then I merged Priya and Ali – they were practically the same character. Then this week I toyed with the idea of merging Fadi and Logan – but they’re almost unreconcilable. Too much difference between them.

: Have you considered, I don’t know, writing an outline? You say writing prompts help you – all an outline is is a collected series of writing prompts. That should be right up your alley.

I think I need to. The problem with outlines has always been I start them with what I have so far, then try to expand on them. I think I need to start from scratch.

: And trash all the help I gave you to get here??

That’s why I’m here, actually. I need your help – but I also wanted to say I’m sorry.

: I suppose you can still salvage some of what you wrote.

That’s my hope.

: Then yeah, you need to start fresh. Get some clear perspective, without any baggage, of what you want to write. The story’s worth it, right?

Oh, yeah, its worth it. Space battles, alien invaders, the fate of life in the Galaxy in the balance, all good stuff.

: Then its settled. Tomorrow, start fresh. But not tonight. I have some beauty rest to catch up on if I’m going to juice you up for a writing session tomorrow.

Thanks, Muse. Talk to you later?

: I bet you say that to all the muses…

3 thoughts on “A dialog with my muse”

  1. When my SO read this last night, she became concerned. Apparently my muse is more than a little saucy. Meh. And still I haven’t written anything of merit today.

  2. That dreaded 11 Sept happened right at the 60% point in my novel. Completely derailed me. I went into “just finish it” mode. I lost my voice, my POV. The whole thing just fell apart. And I never…made my point. And then you look at the thing and say “I need a bloody rewrite” and wonder how the hell you’re going to review and rewrite 477 pages. The muse was gone, and hasn’t been back.

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