The Gift of the Muse

I am starting to get the hang of this writing thing. The books I have been reading have just advised over and over that to be a writer you just need to write. Write and write and write and write some more. So, I started to, but it is just hard to be motivated when you are not writing anything good. I started making more use of this site, 750words.com. The idea behind 750 Words is to just get you writing every day. It was inspired by a book I like, The Artist's Way, in which the author advises anyone who aspires to be any sort of artist to write three pages every day. The makers of 750 words figured that was about how many words would end up on three notebook pages.

I had been using the site in the past, mostly to journal. I would get on a little writing streaks going. The site gamifies things, giving you points for writing, but more points for stringing together streaks of days of writing a little like scoring a bowling game. 

Over the past year I have been trying to write more and more. It was still mostly journaling, though I would use this other book of writing prompts when I wanted to write but could not think of anything. Of course, in September and October of last year I ran off the rails. I came back to it in November and then especially at the beginning of this year. Incidentally, it is no coincidence that my writing output has mirrored my sobriety. Knowing that I had a decent year writing last year, I have sought this year to consistently write more than the same month in 2022. And that has just been on 750 Words. I am writing other little things. I started a novel that I really have no idea where it will go, if it even does. Now I am also writing papers for school. The writing for school has been maybe too easy. Our first assignment was a paper of 500-750 words and after a couple hours I had over 2000 words! I had to spend another couple hours cutting it down in half!

I worked away at writing more and a lot of it, at least 90% was still crap or it was just journal entries that are not all that creative and not anything I want to publish, and by publish I mean even just put it in my blog, my own little hidden corner of the Internet. There were glimmers here and there though. I began entering contests, and had a modicum of success, though I was also getting to compare my writing with other more successful contest entries and getting feedback from professional editors. My writing is not as good as those other writers, but I also know that I can get better. I can get better by working at it.

So I have been working at it. I have been experimenting. I have been applying the lessons I am learning from Stephen King and others who have written books on writing. I have been reading good books and studying what is good about them. I have been reading some really crap books and noticing what is crap about them! Most of all, I have been writing, writing, and writing. It's after 1:30 AM now, and I really should be going to bed, but here I am writing.

And after all this writing and reading something begins to happen, and it happens quickly, like getting hit with Cupid's arrow. I was about to say that it is like getting hit by another car as you are making a turn onto a street and you were sure that car was not just there a moment ago. Without the whiplash, of course. It is sudden like that. It was not there a moment ago, but suddenly it is. But getting hit by a car... you know, that is not all that positive a thing. so I changed that to Cupid's arrow. It is wonderful as well as sudden like that. Maybe not all that sudden though. Probably more like when you are going to the gym consistently, making little gains, and then one day you look in the mirror and think, "Hey, that doesn't look half bad." After all this practice I looked in the mirror the other day and thought, Hey I might just be a writer.

And then this other thing happens. The gift of the Muse. That's that sudden creative inspiration that hits. That's the inspiration we think just suddenly overcame Dickens and Hemingway and Stephen King. Where did they come up with these things? we wonder and figure they must just have been blessed with some angelic touch. So when we just begin writing we wonder why that inspiration will not come to us? Where is our creative fairy Godmother, and why isn't she waving her little magic wand over our heads? We get frustrated and quit. 

Well, your creative Godmother comes after you put in some work. Tonight I was just watching some sportsball and the Muse came. A novel. Twenty-five chapter's worth, in my estimation. Of course, I still need to write it. She doesn't just hand you a couple hundred completed pages. I could write it, and it could be complete garbage. I am going to write it, though, and if it is garbage I will see if I can make it a bit better. And if I can't make it publishable, at least it will be something that I can submit and get feedback on to make something less garbage-like.