Amused at the Muse

It is no secret that I strongly relate to the muse at work. I find it a
wonderful organism despite its reluctance to let me in on certain
secrets, you know, like THE STORY.

I have lost count of the amount of times I have sat down to write,
having no clue as to what is going to happen, turn the laptop on, and
watch as my fingers dance over those twenty six letters to construct THE
STORY. Sometimes I have plot ideas - and duly note them. Rarely are they
used.

The best moments in my writing life is when something so sudden and
unexpected happens which rocks, or a phrase that stands out, or a
metaphor which is as memorable as a chocolate girlfriend. Or best of
all, those Holy Mother ideas which slap you in the face with a fish. I
have nothing to do with these things. It is all the muse.

My muse is hard to please and is as hard headed as my wife. When I wrote
long-hand, it had to be a certain pen, a certain grain of paper, a
certain clipboard - much like George Stark in Stephen King's The Dark
Half, and probably like millions of other writers around the world.

I love the way THE STORY is constructed. It simply plays out in front of
me as I write. I only write for a few hours a day, but when I stop, I am
always thinking, "What's going to happen next! I can't wait til
tomorrow!"

I have illustrated in another article the splattering of ideas and THE
STORY in its first draft. There are mistakes. The muse is not perfect,
but for me, that first draft is why I love to write. It is the reason I
have innumerable first-draft novels in the cupboard. The muse vomits up
THE STORY and leaves me to it. The muse has given me rules to use when
writing but for the most part, it wallows in darkness and never comes
out to play unless I have a keyboard in front of me.

For these things, the muse is a wonderful and amusing creature.