Where has the Elusive Muse Flown Now?

Oh fickle fae that thou art. Flitting hither and yon. Sometimes abiding with me for weeks, promising forever, only to be gone again. Reclaiming you is like netting butterflies soaring high overhead. So I listen to stirring music and watch intriguing shows, hoping for a glimmer of your presence. And yes, I read.

Lately, the garden calls. The June beauty outside my door is heaven. Much inspiration awaits me in the garden(s). I weed my way through scenes in my mind, sow ideas with the seeds, and plant thoughts along with the flowers. The trick is remembering these glimpses into story world after I return, exhausted, to the house. If I chatted away into a tape recorder as I work among the plants, our Old Order neighbors might think me stranger than they already do when they go by in their buggies.  The cyclists zipping past are too caught up in their speed to pay me any mind. Walkers might take note. Our hired hand is used to my mutterings. I think.

Then there’s the actual writing amid the mounting rules. Stifling in their way. Not all words ending in ly are to be ripped from the pages. Some have their uses, I argue.  ‘Was’ and ‘that’ play their part. Here and there. I’m so distracted by what I shouldn’t write, it’s difficult to pen/type anything. Oh, for the days when I didn’t know and in my innocence, simply wrote. Freedom.

So I looked up some great quotes to urge me forward.

“And as imagination bodies forth

The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen

Turns them to shapes and gives to airy nothing

A local habitation and a name.”

– William Shakespeare (from A Midsummer Night’s Dream)

“If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.”

– Somerset Maugham

“I’m not a very good writer, but I’m an excellent rewriter.” ~James Michener

“Ink and paper are sometimes passionate lovers, oftentimes brother and sister, and occasionally mortal enemies.” ~Terri Guillemets

A hearty Amen.

Filed under: Uncategorized Tagged: Am Writing, elusive muse, inspiration