Muses

Writers talk about muses a lot.

I didn’t realize until this week some of y’all youguns take this literally and think that some of us have a critter that tells us what to write.

Those — for traditional publishing — are called publishers. And more often they tell you what NOT to write. Usually what you most want to write, of course. “No. Space Opera doesn’t sell. Write us some of those nice epic fantasies, like what’s his name.”

Muses…

I want to reiterate I don’t have auditory or visual hallucinations. Speaking for myself. I’m sure other people do — I’ve heard them talk — but I don’t. I don’t hear things. No one comes from heaven with a scroll and says “write this next.”

Sometimes with my blogs, I wake up and the idea is there. And sometimes I’d planned to write about something else, but this one must be written now. Guidance? Perhaps.

Or perhaps the subconscious adding two plus two and getting aardvark again.

Look, we don’t understand creativity very well. None of us does.

You’ll hear two types of writers at cons. The ones who tell you that the entire story was there, in their brain, they just had to type it, and it had to be this way, as it arrived. And those that will tell you that they write exactly the story they intend to write.

Both lie. But the ones who tell you the entire story was there and had to be written exactly as delivered lie less. The other ones? yeah. I’ve known several of them. They’re friends.

All I can say is they BELIEVE what they tell you. Which doesn’t mean it’s not the greatest lie in history, second only to “We will never raise taxes.” Or “we’re servants of the people.”

I hear them at cons going “I write exactly what I intend to, and I know exactly what I’m going to write. I come up with the plot, decide who the characters will be, and I write x words per day.” And I crinkle my eyes and don’t giggle, not even inwardly, because as I said, they believe what they say.

But the ones I know, mid novel, struggling with the beast? Like the rest of us they realize they need one more chapter. The story must curl another way, the character slated to be a villain must have slightly different motivations, the hero–

“These are all rational changes. Once I got in, I realized more context was needed. I rationally made the decision–“

Sure they did. Pull the other one. It plays Moon River.

But they believe it, so that’s fine.

The truth is none of us understands how creativity works. Yes, part of it is rational. I tend to write about things/themes/ideas I’ve been worrying at rationally, chewing on them in the daylight hours.

The world celebrates great prison breaks. The French territories still commemorate the day in which the dreaded Bastille burst open before the righteous fury of the peasantry and disgorged into the light of day the innocent, the aggrieved, the tortured and the oppressed.

They forget that every time a prison is opened, it also disgorges, amid the righteous and innocent, the con artists, the rapists, the murderers and the monsters.

Monsters like me.

My name is Lucius Dante Maximilian Keeva, Luce to my friends, though I killed the last one of those fourteen years ago.

Did I slave over every word, looking for maximum impact? Did I even realize this was the opening of a novel? Well, no. I never slave over paragraphs, not in the word sense. Sometimes in revision I’ll sharpen a scene, usually action or a big dramatic denouement. By the time I had that paragraph down I had the feel of the character and the “heft” of the story, and knew it was a novel. But not what the novel was.

Does this mean a muse was dictating it?

We should all be so lucky. Mostly it meant that my subconscious was playing silly buggers with me again. That however my creativity plays out, whatever is broken in my head that makes me HAVE to write.

We don’t know how creativity works.

None of us do.

How the brains of creative people function is one of those things that no one has a good handle on. We just don’t. We know some people create, if not ex-nihilo, close enough as makes no difference.

And that other people can’t do it. Just can’t. If you try to make them do it and give primacy to their works — coffs in dahlings and promoted writers of most of the industry — what you get is either just so morality plays, or derivative bullshit.

People who can’t create wish that they could. They invent all sorts of attributes for those who can. They’re a little scared of them.

People who MUST create get tired of it. The thing is unwieldy and demanding. It’s never quite what you want, or as you want it. It blows hot and cold. it certainly doesn’t maximize for profit and comfort.

And it’s not just one thing. I must write, sure, but I must also cook. I’ll wake up in the morning, with a flavor, and I have to back engineer it and bring it into the world, because it must exist. Or I see a scene in my head and I must draw it. (Those are fluid. I can also write them.) Or …. I want to make the Bennet sisters as bunnies. Mr. Darcy too. Why? I DON’T KNOW. It’s not funny. Stop laughing.

And Jordan Peterson is right. If creatives stop creating they die. Or worse than die. They become something …. odd. They curl in on themselves. Bitterness slips in. It will eventually kill them.

Do you think they wouldn’t prefer to just work — 1k words a day, just as planned — make money, go home, watch TV?

But that’s not how it works. As far as I can tell it’s not how it’s ever worked. Which is why people invented muses as shorthand for “Those crazy people over there, who create new things. Sometimes useful things, sometimes ‘what the heck were you thinking?'”

People called it by other names. Hag-ridden. Cursed by the gods. Or blessed, but you know, those whom the gods love they first make mad.

And writers? Muse is a short hand for “I wanted to write the second one in the series that’s selling, but no, my stupid brain is demanding I write this other story, which is pouring out of me vivid and demanding. And I can’t work on anything else till it’s done.”

Muse is a short hand for “What now?”

Muse is a short hand for “I want to quit and become a dancing bear or something. Why in heck writing? Why in heck me? Why in heck now?”

No one knows. It’s mostly, I think, the subconscious and the spirit of the perverse messing with us.

Or it could be muses.

Yeah, let’s call them muses. Then we can name them, and call them bad words when things aren’t going properly.

Blame it on the muses. Even if (particularly since) they don’t exist.

Curse those muses.