#IWSG: Pesky, Unreliable Muses!

~ J.S. Pailly

Welcome to the Insecure Writer’s Support Group!  If you’re a writer, and if you feel in any way insecure about your writing life, click here to learn more about this awesome group!

For these Insecure Writer’s Support Group posts, I usually like to turn the floor over to my muse.  You probably know the spiel: she has something to say, maybe it’s something your muse would like to hear, blah blah blah….

But my muse didn’t show up for work today, and I’m not really sure what to do.  I guess… I guess I have to write this post on my own.  So… umm… I’m not really sure how to do that.

You know, this is so typical.  I’ve known my muse for over a decade now.  She first introduced herself by having me write her into a story, and I’ve gotten to know her better through various character development and world building exercises she’s had me do since then.  She seems nice enough for a fairy person. At least she’s not one of those Puc-like prankster fairies.  She’s warned me about them.

But still, she gets on my nerves sometimes.  Our writer/muse relationship has always been super one-sided.  When she has a story idea, I have to drop everything I’m doing and go write it down for her.  It doesn’t matter if I’m in bed trying to sleep, or if I’m at my day job trying to work, or if I’m out with friends trying to have a social life.  I’ve convinced her to wait and be patient if I’m driving, because safety is important; but otherwise if the muse calls, she expects me to answer.  No excuses.

But does my muse pay attention to my needs as a writer? No.  Does she show up when I need to get a blog post done, or when some other writing deadline is looming, or when I just want to finish up my word count quota for the day?  No.  Honestly, I don’t often use this kind of language, but my muse can be an insensitive—

Uh oh, here she comes.

25 thoughts on “#IWSG: Pesky, Unreliable Muses!”

  3. Love it! 😀 There seems to be a lot of muses going missing. Weather extremes are being blamed elsewhere, glad that yours proved to be just the pursuit of caffeine!

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  7. It is maybe a misunderstanding that the muses just inspire us. In his “Theogonia” Hesiodos describes that while he is shepherding with his companions, the muses approach them, not to inspire but instead to abuse them:

    The goddesses first spoke this word to me,
    the Muses of Olympus, daughters of aegis-bearing Zeus.
    “Rustic shepherds, worthless reproaches, mere stomachs,…”

    So it looks like we have to write our stuff ourselves and the muses just kick us a bit 🙂

    OK, further down, Hesiodos says: “…They breathed in me an inspired voice…” but they are definitely a bit ambivalent.

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    1. I hadn’t heard that story before, but it sounds right to me. I certainly don’t think of the muse as merely bringing me magical inspiration. She can be more like a coach or a drill sergeant at times too.

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