I’m still sort of busy with all my top secret stuff, so I’m going to let my muse write today’s Insecure Writer’s Support Group post for me. She has something she’d like to say, and maybe it’s something your muse would like to hear.

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I was at the top of my class in muse training school. I knew everything about the secret magic of inspiration. I thought I was so ready. Then I was assigned to my writer, and he was a bit younger than I’d been expecting.

Turned out I’d have to wait… and wait… and wait, until my writer finally grew up. I also had to wait while my writer went through some bad experiences, and made some poor life choices, before he finally realized what writer’s are supposed to do with their lives (hint: it involves writing!).

At the moment, my writer is going through something of a transition. He’s taking some risks and trying some new stuff, and not everything is going according to plan. He’s starting to worry. He’s getting cold feet. He’s starting to worry that maybe he wasn’t meant to be a writer at all.

Of course he doesn’t remember how he became a writer. He doesn’t remember when it really began. He was too young at the time. Which brings me to the little piece of advice that I want to share with all the other muses who might be reading this: writers sometimes need to be reminded that they were born to write.

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Today’s post is part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop where insecure writers like myself can share our worries and offer advice and encouragement. Click here to find out more about IWSG and see a list of participating blogs.

We all know writers feel insecure sometimes. That’s what the Insecure Writer’s Support Group is all about. What we writers might not realize, or may sometimes forget, is that our muses get insecure too.

With that in mind, I’m going to turn the floor over to my muse. She has something to say, and maybe it’s something you or your muse would like to hear.

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We all know the rule: one muse per writer. There just aren’t enough of us fairy-folk around to start doubling up. But I wish I could have a helper or an assistant or something. I wish I had an apprentice muse working under me. Then I could really get stuff done.

The truth is I can’t do everything myself. I can put as many ideas into my writer’s head as I want, but that doesn’t mean he’ll write them down. You know how humans are. They’re easily distracted. Their minds wander. They keep complaining about being “too tired.”

It would be nice if I could get some help. Unfortunately, King Oberon and Queen Titania have rejected my requests to start a muse internship program. That leaves me only one option: I’ll have to convince my writer to pull his own weight. Well, that plus the weight of a pen, I guess.

That way, when I give my writer ideas, he’ll be able to move his own hand over to the paper, without any magical help at all.

Today’s post is part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group. Click here to find out more about the group and to see a full list of participating blogs.

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In the past, I’ve written a lot of IWSG posts about my muse. Mostly, I’ve written about how much we fight. We quarrel over what to write, how to write, when to write (sorry, muse, but 2 a.m. is not the appropriate time).

But today, I just want to take a moment and say something to my muse. Something I don’t say often enough.

Of course these muse posts are hyper metaphorical. They represent the inner triumphs and turmoils of the creative life. I don’t actually believe a magic fairy whispers ideas in my ear.

Metaphorical or not, the relationship between a writer and muse can become strained. Writing is hard. Tensions run high. It’s upsetting when words just don’t fit together the way they’re supposed to.

You might start to think you suck as a writer. Your writing sucks. You life sucks. You blame your muse for withholding inspiration; your muse blames you for lacking persistence. And then things get nasty.

That’s why it’s so important to stop and affirm to yourself, as often as you can, in whatever metaphorical or non-metaphorical terms you prefer, that you are good at what you do, and that you’re getting better. Go ahead. Do it now.

It might seem silly at first, but the power of positive thinking is real. It won’t solve every problem, but it is the best defense against the chronic negativity that afflicts so many of us as writers.

Some people may think this is silly. Normal people (or “norms” as we often call them) don’t get it. Even other writers don’t always understand. Not everyone believes in muses.

But for me, muses are very real. They’re magical beings. They’re annoying beings. They’re ungodly frustrating sometimes. For example, my muse does this to me…

… all the freaking time!

So do you believe in muses? Is your muse as difficult to work with as mine?

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Today’s post is part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a bloghop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Allison Gammons, Tamara Narayan, Eva E. Solar, Rachel Pattison, and Ann V. Friend. Click here to find out more about this amazing group and see a full list of participating blogs.

For these Insecure Writer’s Support Group posts, I usually talk about my muse. Sometimes, I turn the floor over to my muse and allow her to talk about me, her insecure writer.

Anyway, it’s December, so my muse and I are starting to think about what we want for Christmas. Here are some of the things I hope my muse will give me:

• New story ideas.
• New settings to explore.
• New characters to learn about.
• New plot devices to exploit.
• New ways to slip sciency stuff into my stories.

Above all, I’m asking my muse to give me enough enthusiasm to keep me writing throughout the coming year.

As for what my muse wants for Christmas…

Muses can be mean sometimes.

So what do you hope your muse will give you for Christmas (or whichever holiday you’re celebrating this year)?

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Today’s post is part of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Sandra Hoover, Mark Koopmans, Doreen McGettigan, Megan Morgan, and Melodie Campbell. To see a full list of participating blogs, or maybe to join the group yourself, click here.

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.

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I’ve written before about the difficult relationship I have with my muse. We never seem to be in sync. I want to write, and she’s not in the mood. She wants to write, but I’ve made plans with friends, or I have to leave for work, or it’s three o’clock in the morning and I’m trying to sleep.

This September created a lot of extra strain between me and my muse. You see, I moved out of my old apartment and into a nice, new house.

What my muse doesn’t seem to appreciate yet is that this new house will be a much better environment for both of us. No more loud music from the apartment upstairs, no more noisy traffic outside the bedroom window at night, no more strange smells wafting in from across the hall.

There’s a lot more space and a lot more natural light. There’s even a reading room. A room just for reading! How cool is that?

The process of moving disrupted all of my creative endeavors, which infuriated my muse; however, things bounced back to normal a lot sooner than I expected. In the final week of September, after all the moving was finished, I wrote over 18,000 words, which is probably a personal best. I’m taking that as a good sign for things to come.

At the moment, I’m still sort of living out of boxes and I’m on the hunt for new furniture. Any suggestions for things I can do to make my new house an even more writing-friendly environment?

The first Wednesday of the month is Insecure Writers Support Group day. It’s a sort of group therapy session for writers. Click here for more information and to see a full list of participating blogs.

Today, I want to once again turn the floor over to my muse, who has some insecurity issues of her own.

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Hello. I’m James’s muse. I’m the little voice inside his head telling him to write. Unfortunately, I’m not the only one in here, and some of the other voices don’t have my writer’s best interests at heart.

Sometimes, these other voices are oafishly blunt, saying things like, “Your writing is bad and you should feel bad.” Other times, they’re a bit more crafty. “Gee,” they’ll say, “you’re really busy today. Too busy to write. Why don’t you do it tomorrow or next week?”

This nonsense is easy enough for me to ignore, but my writer gets confused and flustered.

The only thing I can do is try to make sure that my voice is the loudest. But even then, the negative voices still find ways to sabotage my writer’s efforts.

Are there are other muses out there having this kind of problem? What have you done to combat all this internal negativity and keep your writers on track?

 

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.

Finally, my muse turns up. She has some fantastic inspiration to give me, and we’re making real progress on our current writing project. The hours fly by. Words come easily. Writing should always be like this!

And then, my muse tells me to stop.

For the last few months worth of Insecure Writer’s Support Group posts, I’ve been turning the floor over to my muse so that she can tell us about her mystical world of imaginary things. So today, I thought I’d ask her: what’s the deal? Why do I have to stop writing just when things are going so well?

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Hello. I’m James’s muse. That means it’s my job to give James that tiny flash of inspiration he needs to start writing. But a good muse (and I like to believe I’m a good muse) concerns herself with more than just writing. She must remain mindful of her writer’s happiness, health, and general well-being.

And that means signaling to our writers when it’s okay to stop.

My writer obsesses over writing schedules, looming deadlines, and word count quotas. As a result, he suffers terrible anxiety whenever he doesn’t live up to his own lofty expectations. He argues with me, telling me I don’t understand the pressure he’s under—whatever that means.

But last week, my writer ran into trouble finishing a blog post for his Solar System series. He wanted to just plow through it. He thought he knew how to fix it. But I told him to relax, and for once, he listened!

As a result, the blog post came out a day behind schedule, but it ended up being one of the best in the whole series (at least in my writer’s opinion).

Creativity only grows in the right environment, and it won’t grow in the mind of a fatigued and frustrated writer. That’s why responsible muses must tell their writers to take breaks, eat nutritious meals, and get a full night’s sleep.

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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 I.W.S.G. and to see a full list of participating blogs.