By Luke Preston
The muse is a liar. Not a romantic liar. Not a charming liar. Certainly not the kind that makes you feel special while it’s ruining your life. Nope. The muse is the kind of liar who says they’re five minutes away while you’re still all alone in your apartment, staring at a blinking cursor.
Writers love the idea of a muse because it absolves them when things don’t go their way.
If the muse didn’t show up. Not their fault.
If the pages didn’t come. Not their fault.
If the book is terrible. It was that damn inconsiderate muse again.
It’s nice to have someone to blame, isn’t it?
If the muse was an employee, it would be the worst employee ever hired. It’s always late, and that’s if it turns up at all. In the meantime, you’ve had to start without it, all while you’ve got deadlines, bills, kids with hungry stomachs, agents demanding pages, and your answer to not meeting any of those obligations can’t be, “the muse was late.”
If you’re sitting around your office, pacing back and forth waiting for the muse to turn up, it will never happen. If you sit at the keyboard and start typing out words, sooner rather than later the muse will turn up and peek over your shoulder. Not because the writing is good, but because writing is happening.
The only time writer’s block comes in handy is when you’re trying to avoid writing altogether.
Any other time, it’s a real pain in the ass.
There’s so much mysticism about writer’s block. Like it’s some sort of curse you picked up after offending the wrong fortune teller. It’s not a curse, and it’s not evidence you’ve lost your mojo and should go become a real estate agent.
A case of writer’s block typically comes on in one of two ways:
1) Fear
2) Lack of clarity
Fear sounds like, “What if this is terrible?” “What if they find out I’m full of shit?”
Lack of clarity sounds like, “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I’m embarrassed.”
Both will stop you from writing, and neither feels good. You’ll have a tight chest, a foggy brain and a sudden interest in doing housework. The solution is not waiting until it passes, nor is it going to a mystic to perform a ritual and have the curse lifted. If the problem is fear, I’m sorry to say, you’re just going to have to sit down and hit the keyboard. Allow yourself to write poorly. If the problem is clarity, ask yourself these questions:
1) What does the character want right now?
2) What happens if they don’t get it?
3) What changes in this scene?
The Blank Page is a Scary Bastard
There’s nothing more frightening to a writer than the blank page. On one hand, the possibilities are endless. On the other, the blank page is a mirror that reflects every insecurity you’ve ever had. It doubts your originality, intelligence and grit. That cursor, just sitting there blinking.
On. Off.
On. Off.
On. Off.
Like it knows something you don’t.
Do you want to know how to beat that blank-page bastard?
Type something bad. Think of the worst sentence you can think of and put it down on that blank page. Bad dialogue. Embarrassing metaphors. Whatever. Just make sure that it’s so bad that you would never show anybody sober.
Why, dear reader, you may ask?
Because bad writing can be fixed. A blank page can’t.
Put something down.
Anything.
Write bad.
Writing isn’t for Tourists
Tourists want souvenirs. They want to visit writing like people want to visit Paris. They want to wander around, take a few photos and go home to sleep in their own bed. They want the identity of being a writer without the cost. The romance without the broken heart. The bender without the hangover. But a career in writing takes commitment. It means staying when the vacation stops being fun. Commitment is finishing a first draft even though you know it’s riddled with problems. It’s rewriting scene after scene until it works while your friends are out in the world living well-balanced, emotionally stable lives. It’s about choosing the hard path because the alternative is waking up a decade from now wondering what could have been, and that is too hard to bear.
Writing isn’t a hobby. It’s a craft. If you want a hobby, that’s fine. Take a pottery class, learn guitar or play whatever the hell pickleball is. I bet it’s a hell of a lot more fun and you’ll get fewer scars.
Inspiration is One Flaky Lover
It calls randomly in the middle of the night, promises a great time, then disappears for the next few weeks until it rings again. Discipline, on the other hand, is the dull and reliable spouse who shows up every day and pays the bills.
There’s no doubt about it, inspiration is sexy. It’s exciting. It makes us feel good. Discipline, on the other hand, doesn’t care how you feel. It sits down at the keyboard whether you’re tired, restless, sad, hungover or questioning every single decision you’ve ever made. A professional writer takes discipline over inspiration any day of the week. If your entire creative process depends on you being inspired, you don’t have a process. You have a superstition, and superstition is a terrible business model.
