What, exactly, is the muse?

Did you wonder if I'd be here? I see quite a few of you have checked in already, I'm late - but I'm here! 

So today I am going to write about the muse. Not the band Muse (did you know there was a band? I didn’t until just now), nor the nine muses of Greek/Roman mythology, although that is where the term comes from. Nor do I mean the verb, to reflect upon or to think deeply. I mean the noun, the word meaning a person who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist. This is the dictionary definition, which also states that the muse is generally considered to be a woman or a force personified as a woman. I expect that is because the nine muses were the daughters of Mnemosyne and Zeus. Mnemosyne was the goddess of memory, something vital for the early bards and poets who memorized everything.

Literary history is full of tales of writers and their muses: John Keats and Fanny Brawne, Dante and Beatrice, Baudelaire and Jeanne Duval, F. Scott Fitzgerald and his wife Zelda, Yeats, who had his heart broken by Maud Gonne, and Jane Austen’s unrequited love for Tom Lefroy. These muses had a profound effect on the writers who loved them, which in turn influenced their writing. I can’t say anyone has really done that for me, not just by being there. However I have on occasion been inspired to write because of what someone has done to me, so perhaps that is the same thing, even if as a one off instance.

I consider the muse to be any source of inspiration. It may be a snippet of conversation overhead at the grocery store that sets my imagination off. Or it might be a news article that makes me wonder ‘what if?’.  Some writers use the muse as a handy euphemism for writers block – ‘the muse has deserted me’ sounds more romantic than ‘I have writers block’. Then when they find inspiration they say they were ‘visited by the muse’. That’s a nice way of putting it, and writers often being superstitious, some probably fear saying ‘writers block’ in case they consign themselves to that particular writers hell forever.

 All writers have different styles of writing; some outline, some write chapters out of sequence, some edit exhaustively (well we all do that, but we all do it in different ways), some even write the synopsis first and then fill in the book from that. It’s not surprising then that we all have different approaches to inspiration. Some writers can’t write unless they have music playing, in fact a lot are like that. Others need a particular arrangement on their desk or their favourite cup full of their preferred beverage before they can start.

So how do I get my inspiration, how do I write? As I said, I get inspiration from anywhere, sometimes it’s a couple of things that I’m turning over in my head that coalesce into the one, other times it’s a particularly vivid dream that stays with me long enough to write it down. I don’t use any of the useful gadgets some writers do. I may do if I could afford them, but my style of writing doesn’t require them. I keep my story ideas on the notes app on my phone. When they grow enough to warrant more information I start a page in Word with the idea at the top, so I’m ready to begin writing that story.

I don’t outline, except for the paranormal series. There I found that I needed a story overview so that I could segment it into each book. But it’s a very basic outline. For everything else I just sit down and write. I did try to outline when I first started writing professionally, but it doesn't work for me. I don’t write chapters out of sequence and I’m in awe of writers who do. I have no idea what future chapters will contain, so I write sequentially. What I do - and I don’t know if other writers do this as well - is spend weeks, on occasion months, turning an idea over in my head. I think about it, sometimes dream about it. It’s always in the back of my mind, gradually coalescing. Then, when I sit down to write, it flows as though already written in some dark recess of my brain.

For the paranormal series, because I have a lot of characters, I keep a notebook with their names and details. I’ve even included a little drawing of each one to remind myself of their physical attributes. I’ve written a totally different book since the first in the paranormal series, so I need to be sure I remember the characters correctly. For the sequel to Letters I’ve also got a list of characters, to keep them all straight. Now that I’m writing the little series to fill in the gap between Letters and the book about Saffron (as yet not named) those characters are living in my brain, walking around and chatting together. It makes switching gears to Zora and her crew interesting. However Zora as a character is different, although she and Cassie have in common a belief that they are not good enough for their particular story.

Is there anything that I need to set my scene so that I can write? I would have said no, but when I thought about it a bit more I do prepare to write. I mostly write in the afternoon (blame the Egyptian tendency to start late in the day) and I get all of my chores done first. I currently write on my bed, propped up against the headboard. Not having a desk, it’s the most comfortable position for me here. I also get a good sea breeze through my balcony door, and I can peek out the window and watch the boats on the Red Sea to give my eyes a break from the screen. I bring with me a cup of tea and if I have any, a couple of biscuits. I don’t have music, reason being that when I’m writing I don’t hear anything so music would be redundant. Finally, I have cats with me. I don’t prepare them, they happen to love it when I sit on the bed so they usually beat me here.

So all I need to write is a cup of tea, a seat, my laptop and some cats. And an idea. I’m a low maintenance writer!

The nine muses — Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia,Terpsichore,Thalia and Urania — on a Roman sarcophagus (2nd century AD, from the Louvre)

This is the closest I could find to my definition of muse