Hello. I’m James’s muse. For the last few months of IWSG, James has allowed me to take the floor and share some of my insights on musing with my fellow muses. But today, I’m going to turn the floor back over to James so he can tell us what it’s like to work with a muse as delightful and wonderfully helpful as myself.
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Shh! Don’t tell my muse about this, but I’ve found a way to trick her into helping me write, even when she’s not in the mood. I’ve developed a writing exercise where I write something so horribly, painfully bad that it offends my muse’s literary sensibilities.
Doing this forces my muse out of hiding so she can fix all my mistakes. Mind you, she gets angry. She mutters all kinds of nasty things about me and my mother. But she does come out, and eventually we start writing some useable material.
My deliberately bad writing style is inspired by a YouTube video called “Half Life: Full Life Consequences.” For those of you who haven’t seen this masterpiece of badness, it’s a dramatic reading of a work of fan fiction based on a video game.
Fellow writers, please spare a few minutes to watch this. You won’t regret it.
So what do you do to coax your muse out whenever s/he is too lazy otherwise indisposed for writing?
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If you or your muse found today’s post helpful, please let us know in the comments below. Today’s post is part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Click here for more information about IWSG and to see a full list of participating blogs.
Planet Pailly 
Thanks for this post. Sometimes I’d write when she doesn’t want to come out but this time it’s easier said than done. But April has left me drained and in an un-writing mood. So this writing bad on purpose trick came at the right time. Might be what I need to get my muse out of hibernation.
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As with all writing exercises, it can’t hurt to try it. I hope it helps!
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That sounds like a good approach. It’s what I do when I’m suffering writer’s block with work stuff: give myself permission to write awful stuff just to get a first draft out.
Have you ever tried Nanowrimo? It’s the “I’m going to write; muse, you’re welcome to come along or not” approach.
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I have several writing buddies who do Nano each year. It seems to work for them, but I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not for everyone. Editing as I go is too ingrained in my writing process.
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I suppose looking at visual imagery fires sleepy neurons in different parts of the brain. I like contemporary science fiction, Half life is popular, hilarious and funny in a contemporary vein, so people don’t take it seriously which definitely helps.
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Playing Half Life puts me in a very particular state of mind. Being in that state of mind meshes well with my writing sometimes.
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That was almost painful to watch. Head Crab Zombie. That’s going to be in a bad SyFy movie one day.
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