Blame the 9 Muses

The Muse made me do it, so I blame it on her. It’s not my fault that she has taken control and turned my life upside down. This post is her idea, not mine. It’s my turn again to bring some joy into your life [at least that is the intent] with talk about writing, naturism and the idiosyncrasies of being a writer. I thought this post was going to be somewhat practical, but she has her own agenda here. Before she takes over, I do have a few words that I want to say on my own behalf.

I’ve been trying out a few new things with regards to writing but to be honest, my writing is still going as slow as ever, and I still excel at creating a lot of work for when I slip into editing mode. I have to admit that writing the first draft is an exciting adventure. There is a real sense of wonder as the characters reveal themselves. I know, it all sounds quite wonderful, if only it was that simple.

There is a major problem. The characters that emerge are the problem. Like real humans, there is more unknown than know. The characters are messy. The more like humans, the messier they are. And that messiness is magnified because the author doesn’t have his own ducks in a row. I mean to do it right, it would help to do one story at a time. Well, that is easier said than done.

I finished writing one book with three sets of edits, only to return to story begun a year earlier to guide that story to a new set conflict and complication. Believing that I was now ready to do justice to the story, a new story came forward making a lot of noise, demanding that I pay attention.

I blame all of this on Madame Muse. I cave in easily to the vagaries of the Muse. Like an obedient monk listening to his superior churchman, I did what I was told and a new story found its way onto my keyboard. Then after a goodly amount of time, that story was told … well sort of. I sent off the story to three beta readers.

Now, I am awaiting their responses. So, what to do while waiting? Well, there was this story I began … let’s see … more than a year ago. I saw it sitting in a folder, a file of about 3,000 words. I wanted to ignore the Muse and return to the more recent works-in-progress.

The Muse doesn’t take too kindly to being ignored, or worse yet, defied. Try getting a decent night’s sleep when there is this voice constantly interrupting peaceful dreams. You have to understand that I am retired and don’t have to get up to go to work. So, when the Muse gets her ire up, I find myself up in the wee hours of the morning, long before dawn. Too many nights like this and I become obedient.

The Muse knows what she was doing. When I trust her, things go well. But when I get stubborn and think I am in control, the results aren’t really worth the time and energy invested. With that said, it was because of the Muse and her that I was led to writing naturist fiction. Perhaps it was the Muse that had me re-experience being nude as being more than a healing therapy.

I’ve since got to know something new about the Muse, at least new to me. She has multiple personality disorder. I mean, how can I better explain as she led me through poetry books, non-fiction books, naturist fiction, speculative fiction, historical fiction and stories for middle-grade youth.

Seeing how the Muse has interacted with Paul, I found supporting proofs. Paul is all over the spectrum of genres for writing as he balances several books and genres at the same time. It makes me wonder what she has in store for me. As for Will, well, he is still a young writer [okay not so young but the youngest of our three caballeros here at Naturist fiction] and his time will come, a time when he will find himself juggling more than half a dozen works-in-progress at the same time.