Me and my muse…

Not really getting any writing done this week, but even though I just wrote about my doubts about writing, it’s not depression keeping the words from flowing. I mean, I am depressed, but this has more to do with comparing myself to others than it does with my self-doubts and typical loathing opinion of my hackery. In any case, these feelings aren’t the source of the word blockade.

No, I’m not writing this week because I got in a minor spat with my muse about the werewolf story, and she’s stopped talking to me. All I said was that the middle needed some form of tension before the villains show up, and bam, she was cold just like that. I can’t even talk her into a new episode of All Maid Up at this point, and I had no problems with the directions she wanted to go in this season.

Some people may think I’m joking, or at the very least exaggerating when I talk about my muse. I even know writers who insisted in past blog posts that there’s no such thing as a muse, and that it’s all part of us. They say that even if there’s no spark of inspiration, I should have butt in chair every day, cranking out words even if the words suck. Well I don’t roll that way, and considering that I’ve out written most pros on my good days (I get gusts of up to 15K in one day. Yeah, smoke on that, bitches!), I don’t feel I need to take advice about how I write. I also don’t agree that the muse is simply another part of me, because when she’s not talking, what I come up with is pure shit. Really, I have whole trunk novels where I attempted to write without my muse, and those books are awful. Like, I won’t even show them to hubby.

At times, I’ve had spats with my muse because the stories she wanted to explore won’t make money in decent amounts. The topics she wants to explore make normal people squeamish, to say the least, and so sometimes I begin pushing for something a bit more mainstream. This werewolf book, being a YA with gay characters, was her attempt to appease me with something less squicky than her prior proposals. And I don’t think it’s a bad story. I just think that the middle needs some conflict to keep it interesting. Every scene happens a little too easily, in my opinion, and there’s not much for the main character to feel worried over. The narrator’s boyfriend is descended from an African wolf who consumed moon rocks, which means he’s smaller than traditional werewolves, doesn’t have blurring super speed, and thus is not very threatening. So, feeling the story needed a little something something to make it more exciting, I suggested one minor change to the muse’s plans, and she went all super-diva on me and walked off.

I have no idea how long she’ll be gone this time. She’s had short temper tantrums that only lasted a week or two, and then there was that time she walked out for two years. I’m sure that I can eventually lure her back out and get back to work, but in the meantime, all I can do is apologize to those of you waiting to see what happens to Ginger after that really tense last episode of All Maid Up. I’d love to tell you, really. But my writing partner is pissed at me for questioning her genius, and for now, all I can do is sit at my desk with Word open, waiting for her to forgive me for my slight.

And on a final note, sometimes I envy mainstream writers who just push out the same book with new characters according to a tried and true formula. I may hate that safe shit myself, but it does pay the bills with regular sales, and using a formula probably never means having a long fight with an inner voice whose suddenly decided that she’s too good for me. (9_9)