Care and Feeding of a Muse
Each person's muse is different. Some are like a reservoir in a drought-ridden country, and require time to fill. Some folks have muses that seem to grow stronger the harder they work them. Some muses are seasonal, only working at certain times of the year (or the month.) My muse is like a firefly with ADD—a million ideas all the time, but not always the strength or calm to carry them through.
For writers, the challenge is to work with the muse you've got. It can be hard—we all want the hardworking muses, or the ones who respond eagerly to writing programs and publishing deadlines. It's easy to envy those whose imagination flows easily into stories without time for plotting or rewriting.
Much as I'd like a straightforward, linear muse, I've decided to love the muse I've got. And in doing so, I'm working on ways to harness the firefly. No matter what I do, I seem to turn out a story every 2–3 months. So clearly my muse is doing something right. I just wish I trusted her more, that I could rely on her. That I could know when the words I wrote would be words I'd keep. At least more than 50% of the time.
So here's a few things I've been doing lately to work *with* my muse, not against her. Feel free to try them yourself!
1. Allow yourself to think in circles.
Recently I've started doing mind-maps of characters, problems and arcs. And here's the rub: I do it on paper. Sure, there are programs that would allow me to map bubbles and shapes, but it's not the same as pen and paper.
The best part of mind-mapping is that I can think in circles instead of straight lines. Whether my arrows start out going right or left, they always find their way right…then across the bottom…then up the left side…then across the top. In other words, I think clockwise!
What a breakthrough! No wonder I can't outline to save my life. I don't think from top to bottom, I think in circles. …and that's okay.
2. Don't impose order until you have to.
There comes a time in brainstorming that you just…can't…stop…yourself from writing the story. The books I've written the fastest were the ones I let ferment that long. Sure, you can wing it on the keyboard. And maybe that'll work. Perhaps you can even strong arm your muse with word count goals. However, those word count goals will be easier to meet if you've visualized a lot of the story beforehand. Some people can think and write at the same time, but not me.
3. Get physical!
Much of my best brainstorming happens when I'm riding my bike or doing yoga. Your body understands things your mind never will. Think about your characters while getting hot and sweaty, and it'll be easier to get your characters hot and sweaty.
4. Work with your hands
This was a tip I got from a business development friend of mine. I thought he was crazy when he suggested I build my story out of Legos. But today I decided to build my story out of play dough, and it was GREAT! It didn't hurt that I made the play dough myself and mixed the colors with food coloring. My goal was to understand the "shape" of my story.
To me, story shape is a big deal. Unless I have an almost three-dimensional concept of how the tale will develop, I can't even begin to write it. When I started adding glops of play dough, I thought the process was nuts. It was just balls of flour and water. There was no rhyme or reason except that I created colors for different characters. Even that only occurred well after I started building.
I didn't set out to create anything that looked like a shape, I only mapped what I saw as the characters doing what I thought they might. It looked like nothing at first. Then by the end…
It had shape! Heck, it looked like a KISS face. Or a freaky, sick-and-twisted smiley face—which pretty much epitomizes my writing style. It's a story! One that needs more detail, sure, but a "thing" nonetheless. And that's one more step to channeling my hummingbird-on-crack muse.
5. Trust…don't rush
In this biz, it's so easy to feel the pressure to produce, produce, produce. To get from point A to point B as fast and clean as you can. But a lot of muses don't work that way. My muse gets from A to B by way of Q, F, and Omega. But my muse still gets there. What matters is learning how to trust that path. Thinking in circles doesn't take any longer than thinking in straight lines—once you give your muse permission, take off your muse's blinders, and set that firefly free.
HAPPY WRITING!
