Sunday, January 27, 2008

The Muse

The Muse

True or false: looking back over my creative work, as a writer, painter, musician, actor, I find it hard to distinguish later what pieces came to me in some mystical (muse-like) way from what pieces came to me through repeated, hard work.This is true for me. The exception being that writing that comes like a ghost in the night sometimes has a more dreamlike quality to it--totally fitting but not necessarily better. What about you.
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8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ive had the same experience. Some days the words felt like they were awful and dripping out at a painful pace, yet the next day they read breezy and free. And other days were I felt like I was channeling the muse and the next day saw prose that was dead. That's why I don't worry too much about good days and bad days writing wise as long as I keep having writing days.

6:03 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...

And six months later, it can change again. What a puzzlement!

6:54 PM
Sophie Littlefield said...

very true about the elapsed-time effect. Still, though, I think that prose I labor over is more likely to read like labored prose...though perhaps several hundred thousand more hours of practice might help... :)

12:09 AM
pattinase (abbott) said...

I see your point. Overworked prose is stiff. But I swear some of the stuff that flew into my head should have flown out but I shut the window too quickly.

8:24 AM
Steve Allan said...

Everything comes to me in a dream like way. As many can see no hard work goes into my writing what so ever. And it shows. :)

If I look at a piece of writing that I did a year ago, I really couldn't tell you what came from what. And truthfully I find that it isn't as horrible as I would have thought it would be, so I assume that none of it came from me.

The muse appears whenever she's drunk and looking for a good time.

2:37 PM
Steve Allan said...

And I should add that she usually shows up when she's slumming it and no one else answers her booty call.

2:38 PM
pattinase (abbott) said...

Is it the muse who's drunk or you?

2:43 PM
Steve Allan said...

Whatever works to get the magic going.

3:47 PM

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