Oh Muse, Where Are Thou?

I saw one of my Facebook friends, an English writer named Ian Woodhead (great horror stories) mention the other day how grateful he was that his muse had returned and I knew exactly what he was talking about.

Sometimes when you write it is easy. When I'm working on my Noah Chance series I always refer to it as Noah, Spencer and Jennifer coming to visit, and when they do the words just flow. The story goes in directions I didn't anticipate and when finish for the day I'm always surprised at how much I've done.

At other times I know it is me writing because each word is forcibly pulled from my mind and placed onto the screen. I find myself distracted easily, getting up to make multiple trips around the house, checking the mail, making a snack or something to drink, anything to keep from having to put the next word/sentence/chapter into the program.

It's not that I don't like writing when it's like that, it's just that it isn't as much fun! I find myself having to think about things, plot out what's going to happen, what my characters are going to say, and what to name the new guy in the book. Not so when the muse is present, everything just leaps forth.

The book I am working on now (mostly) Louisiana, should be easy for me because I love the topic, love my home state, and have read and studied it so much I shouldn't have any problems.

I think one issue is that when you're writing a novel that spans several hundred years and spread out across an entire state, you just start getting to know a character when it's time to leave them and move on so they never really get to do the writing for you.

Lesson learned!

I'll put an ad on Craiglist for any unemployed muses and hopefully one will show up. A good one, not prone to disappearing for weeks at a time and one that likes my topics and doesn't try to distract me into writing something else.

Hope it works! My self imposed middle of May deadline for this book is rapidly approaching.