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.”

Welcome to the Insecure Writers Support Group, a blog hop hosted by Alex J. Cavanaugh. Click here to find out more about the group and to see a full list of participating blogs.

For last month’s IWSG, I turned the floor over to my muse, that ethereal being who nags me when I skip writing sessions. For this month’s IWSG, I’ve asked my muse to explain where, precisely, she goes when I have writer’s block.

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Hi. I’m James’s muse, and that means it’s my job to make sure James does his writing. This job can be… challenging. Sometimes, my writer has other obligations, so I must try to be patient. Other times, my writer gets lazy, at which point he needs a stern lecture concerning his writerly responsibilities.

But there are also occasions when my writer is pumped up, eager to write, positively bubbling with enthusiasm… but I’m not ready. So he just sits there, pen in hand, blank papers arrayed in front of him, waiting for me to tell him what to do.

He starts to worry. He wonders where I’ve gone. He wonders if I’ve left him. Am I ever coming back? He’ll start calling my name, asking what he’s done wrong and begging me to forgive him for various imagined misdeeds.

What writers don’t understand is that sometimes we muses need time. It’s delicate work, weaving together the tiny threads of the subconscious into a coherent story idea. When a muse is in the midst of this sort of work, she MUST NOT BE DISTURBED!

My fellow muses, if your writer starts to panic (symptoms include persistent pacing, weeping, or hyperventilating), calmly suggest reading a book, going for a walk, or maybe taking a nap. Try to reassure your writer that so-called writer’s block is just a “do not disturb” sign from his or her muse, and that some brilliant idea is in development.

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If you or your muse found today’s post helpful, please let us know in the comments below. I’m thinking these Muse Chats will become a regular feature here on Planet Pailly. Next month, my muse will be talking about her “law of writerly motion,” whatever that is.

So I went through a tough 2014 and ended up dropping off the face of the Internet for a while. I missed several installments of the Insecure Writers Support Group and had to re-sign up.

But rather than talk about that, I’m going to turn the floor over to my muse. She has something she wants to say, and maybe she has some advice your muse would like to hear.

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Hello, I’m James’s muse. That means I’m a supernatural being sent to guide James through his journey as a writer. Or maybe I’m a symbolic representation of some aspect of James’s psychology. Or maybe I’m the personification of a growing mental disorder.

Details, details… it doesn’t really matter who or what I am. All you need to know is that I’m a muse, and a muse’s job is to ensure that her writer does his writing.

This job can be frustrating, to say the least. Writers invent all kinds of crazy excuses to skip writing. But believe it or not, some of these excuses might be legitimate. For example:

• Your writer might complain about some sort of emotional stress and blah, blah, blah. You and I know writing is the best cure for that stress, but give your writer a chance to simmer down before you point this fact out.
• Your writer might complain about being too tired or hungry to write. This turns out to be a legitimate excuse. Writers are mere mortals, unfortunately, and do require occasional food and sleep.
• Your writer may claim that a beloved relative is ill. Depending on which relative we’re talking about, this might be a legitimate excuse.
• Your writer might say he/she has to go to work. For some reason, writers need money. They use it to do something called “paying bills.” So this “going to work” thing is a legitimate excuse, I guess.

It’s important to remember that we muses are ethereal beings existing in the realm of the imagination, a place where anything is possible. Writers live in an alien world full of burdens and limitations and time constraints. So, my fellow muses, don’t be too hard on your writers when real world problems get in the way of writing.

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Let me know in the comments if you or your muse found today’s post helpful. Click here to learn more about the Insecure Writers Support Group and to see a list of participating blogs.

My muse will return for next month’s IWSG to explain why she stops talking to me whenever I have writer’s block. That should be interesting.