I chose this month’s topic, and in a sense I cheated. I asked the Sisterhood of the Traveling Blog: How would you personify your muse?
For many years, I couldn’t visualize my muse. I couldn’t define it, or even think of it as separate from myself. But since my fiction dried up, I can see my muse clearly:
Many of you have met Churchill, who I rescued from the Animal Shelter, mostly by accident. After my ancient, long-blind cat died, I heard on the news that blind cats were euthanized at the Pound automatically, because they couldn’t find homes. What an awful thought! Blind cats are quite easy to care for. Off I went to the Shelter, to sign up for the next blind cat who came in.
Churchill isn’t blind (though he has the normal Persian eye problems), but he came home with me anyway.
BUT, as you can see, he’s not exactly inspiring. Sweet-tempered, laid-back, and sleepy, he reflects the state of my fiction writing lately. I can power down on my non-fiction for hours, but when I try to write creatively, my eyes cross, the screen blurs, and I fall flat on my back. ZZZZZZZZZZZ.
This state is more frustrating because two years ago I wrote a book in three months, and revised over the next six months. Since then, I’ve started two other books, only to get stuck halfway through. I’m bored to tears with one, and the other has turned into a sequel to a trilogy that desperately needs a total rewrite. I’m threatening to cut the trilogy down to a single novel …
As you can tell, I’m thinking with my fingertips. I’m so frustrated with my lack of creativity, I don’t even want to go near my fiction.
What do you do when inspiration – and your muse – fails you?
