IWSG Muse Chat 3: The Law of Writerly Motion

As has become my custom for these Insecure Writers Support Group posts, I’m going to turn the floor over to my muse. She has something she wants to say, and maybe its advice your muse would like to hear.

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Hi, I’m James’s muse. As such, I live inside James’s brain, and since James is a huge science geek, I have access to a surplus of sciency factoids. Here’s something from some English bloke named Isaac Newton.

Objects in motion tend to remain in motion and objects at rest tend to remain at rest unless acted on by an external force.

This “law of physical motion” caught my attention. As a muse who’s spent countless hours studying her writer’s habits, both the good and the bad, I would like to propose my own “law of writerly motion.”

A writer who’s writing tends to keep writing and a writer who’s not writing tends to keep not writing unless acted on by an INNER force.

My fellow muses, that inner force is us. We don’t need to hold our writers’ hands through the entire writing process. We only have to provide that initial push. Once writers get started, they generally keep going due to their own momentum.

It’s also our responsibility as muses to let our writers know when to stop. I’ve learned to be careful or my writer will either hurt himself or ruin his story. More on that in next month’s Muse Chat.

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If I had my way, I’d keep writing and writing without end. It’s annoying when my muse forces me to stop, but I guess she has her reasons.

Anyway, if you or your muse enjoyed today’s post, please let us know in the comments below. Click here to find out more about the Insecure Writer’s Support Group and to see a full list of participating blogs. Next month, my muse will tell us about the “writing speed limit.”