Forcing the Muse

My schedule didn't allow me to participate in NANOWRIMO this year, but I do have a handful of friends who undertook the challenge. My conversations with them has led me to understand one very important thing: Sometimes the muse doesn't come willingly. Sometimes you have to drag it.

One friend of mine sat looking at her computer screen for the first four days of November, slowly falling behind in her word count. She fretted over the fact she had no concept, no characters, no setting, and no plot line.

Her imagination was an empty void.

"I would have quit," I admitted sheepishly to her. "Not writing, of course, but I would have quit NANOWRIMO. Obviously, it wasn't my year."

The beautiful thing is: she didn't take my advice.

On the fifth day, frustrated and crying, she began writing down absolute nonsense.

My headphones are red. The cord is longer than I think it should be. I have a sugar skull eraser. I don't wish to use it in case I erase off the face.

Pages and pages of nonsense ensued. Two lattes were downed and refilled. Somewhere, along the way, her muse remembered how to walk, then run.

By the end of the week she had a character and a novel plot. Her setting unfolded and she caught up, then surpassed her word count goals.

All of us have been here at some point - staring for days, thinking it's finally happened, we've finally lost our ability to write creatively. In fact, as I write this blog post, I'm in that boat. I've been sick for three weeks and with the surroundings of a new state, new house, and new job, I haven't had much time to devote to writing. Now throw in the holidays and it's like my muse no longer exists.

What I'll have to do next, and what you'll likely have to do eventually too, is force the muse. I'm going to have to get her out of her recliner, walking and remembering what writing feels like and how easily ideas can flow. I'm going to have to make her recall the beauty and the freedom in writing.

And while I won't be NANOWRIMOing anytime soon, I'm hoping a new short story or novel flows forth. I'm not giving up until it does.