My Muse

I have this idea for a collection of stories with a frame story inspired by 1001 Arabian Nights. The main character of the frame story is a writer on a date with a woman. One of the things that attracts the woman to him is the fact that he's a writer. She wants him to tell her a story. He agrees, with one condition: he leaves out the ending. If she wants to know how it ends, she has to agree to go on another date, at which time he finishes one story and tells her another without an ending. And so forth... Their love grows and the stories relate in some way to their relationship. Right now I generally know how the frame story progresses but I don't know any of the stories he tells her. My Muse, at the moment, is silent. I don't know why; this is Her story because the frame story is somewhat of a metaphor for my relationship with Her.

If you've never really written or done anything especially creative, you may not get it. The creative process often does feel like some external agent is telling you what to do. And often you feel like a slave to it. Like this essay. I had an idea to write it and so now I'm compelled to write it. Of course, modern science disdains the idea of muses or daemons or geniuses or whatever you want to call them. It's simply electro-chemical reactions in the brain. But is this idea of an external agent too quaint for our modern age? Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, thinks not:



If your life is just so rushed that you simply can't carve out enough time to watch an eighteen minute TED talk, then the summary in brief. A "genius" (as she calls it) takes responsibility away from the writer. The writer no longer has to feel as pressured to create THE NEXT GREATER THING. A writer could even have fun with it, as she relates Tom Waits telling his muse he's stuck in traffic. While I like the idea, my Muse is telling me to disagree somewhat.

Rationally, muses or geniuses don't make sense. And I'm not sure if perpetuating a myth solves the problem of the writer's (or any creator's) torment. It's something that comes with the territory. Right now, the most I've made from a story is $25. There's a fear that I've already hit my peak. I know a guy who got paid professional rates for a story. That was a year ago and I know he wonders the same thing. I know a well published author who just had her play produced in her small hometown. "But," she's said, "despite my hometown really liking it, it's just a small hometown. Who cares?" Yes, playing the schizophrenic game that little fairy geniuses exist does shift the blame: "Well, it's my Muses' fault I peaked so early!" But I fear it may also be a crutch. Elizabeth Gilbert says that she'll do her part, she'll show up even if her genius doesn't. Again, it seems like a crutch. Yet, paradoxically, I do like the idea of an external agent guiding a creator.

It means the creator doesn't have an ego; he's just following directions. He's not writing for himself, but for the world. And if you think about it, a creator cannot take total credit for anything he creates. The world imposes the ideas that may become a novel or a painting or whatever: a snippet of conversation, the way a car looks, the smell of rain after a storm... This blog entry started because of a conversation I had with a larger writers' group about why we write. The Elizabeth Gilbert talk I found in my aimless searchings on the web. Perhaps the causes and conditions were ripe so that I was able to serendipitously find that talk. Or, more poetically, maybe my Muse told me where to look. Maybe my idea of genius is a little more mystical than Gilbert's.

I don't think the problem of the tortured creator is because we've switched from "having a genius" to "being a genius." I'm sure there were tortured creators when people truly believed in muses and daemons and geniuses. The problem, I think, is that creating something is a bit of an ego boost. Personally, even with my limited success, I feel good that I'm published. I've done something that few people have. But it becomes a competition with myself, with my own ego. It's healthy to step away and reflect that where I am now as a writer is due to so many other factors throughout my life. And upon that reflection, the competition among self and other evaporates. I write just because. It's not a childish answer; it's just what my Muse told me to do.

So what is my Muse? I can tell you Her name. I can even give you a physical description. But seriously, that's just a character in a story collection I may never write. What She really is, is the world, the universe, everything, especially in how it relates to my creativity. She's always awake (even and especially in my dreams), always there. And when I don't feel like writing, yes, that's Her fault too. I'm just a tiny speck in Her massive cosmos. It's not metaphysics. It's poetic expression (Her fault). And it is humbling.