(Okay, this is arrogant stuff for an unpublished novelist, but the same holds for my business writing, and I've been very successful in that field using the same techniques. For example, I cannot write from an outline. A VP used to demand outlines of speeches I wrote for the CEO. I'd write and edit the speech until it was ready, then do an outline and give it to her. She finally caught on and gave up.)
The verbalized theme of the current novel I'm trying to pitch to agents didn't really emerge until 3/4 of the way through the book. It's Thoreau's quote, "Most men live lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." When I found that as I was doing research for a scene, I thought it the saddest statement I'd ever heard. Most of us have heard the first line, but I'd never heard the second. But I also realized that that quote had been driving the entire novel, even though I'd never heard of it.
My conscious mind has an important role to play - just making sure that, in the end, everything comes together, that the paths taken by my unconscious aren't self-indulgent but actually drive the work (again fiction or non-fiction.) Particularly in the editing process, my conscious mind demands consistency and clarity, it rejects tired cliches and trite situations. But then my unconscious most often has to find a way to rectify those problems.
If you're not writing, it's not because your muse has abandoned you. More likely, you've let the outside world distract you to the point where you don't write, where your unconscious is so wrapped up in garbage that the rhetoric machine is unheard.
There are no muses. I would suggest that that's a dangerous concept for a writer, as if the inspiration came from somewhere else. There are only the wild and mysterious ways of the unconscious just waiting for permission to be released.
Article comments
1 - Staci Schoff
What a writer needs more than a muse is the fundamental understanding that writing begets writing. Period. You don't need to be "inspired," you just need to sit down and write. It's an act of discipline more than anything else. Not very romantic, of course, but there it is.
2 - duane
I'm not a "writer," although I am published, but isn't this all summed up by the old adage, "A writer writes"?
When it comes to actual creative writing, I'm what's known as a "starter."
3 - Vern Halen
In all seriousness, I've always believed in "Quality THROUGH Quantity."
4 - Mark Schannon
You're all right...that is, I agree with all of you. Inspiration is wonderful, but the act of writing can create that even when you force yourself to start writing.
5 - Roberta Rosenberg
I've been a direct response copywriter for 20+ years and wouldn't make a living if I had to wait for inspiration to strike. What I tell my copywriting students is this: There's no such thing as writer's block for us. Feeling stymied? Write a piece of the project. Write the PS of the letter first. Mindmap headlines. Even if they're all crap, you're still writing. Tomorrow will be better, and it almost always is.
My muse? The client calls, gives me the project and a deadline, and we settle on the fees. Inspiration enough.
6 - John Spivey
All writing is certainly not the same. As I've said before, one of my martial arts teachers said, "Anything you chose to study and master can be a Way. But, if it doesn't lead you to find out who you really are, then it's just clever behavior."
Writing at the first level is simply a mechanical process just like throwing someone around on the mat. Practice it long enough and with enough due diligence and something else may begin to emerge. It depends on what one wants from the writing. Is the writing meant to first enlighten oneself and then others, or is it meant to be clever mechanics primarily for profit and self-congratulation.
I think the Greeks probably knew the gods, godesses and muses resided primarily inside. They are merely internal gateways. We are the ones who externalize everything.
js
7 - Mark Schannon
Roberta, as a PR writer, I completely understand and agree.
John, I don't think we're in disagreement about writing serving different purposes. There are lots of wealth romance novelists out there whose Grail is probably empty.
But there is a tendency among writers--particularly those not under deadline--to wait for the muse to speak, and if you talk as if it were some external force with a divine touch, you'll have a tendency to act that way.
That's the issue I was trying to get out.
Your comment about the Greeks is interesting. The Greek gods were very real to them--much closer to the old Testament Jewish God. I don't know it for a fact, but I'd guess they really did believe in muse/goddesses as external entities.
When either of us gets three free minutes, we can look it up, LOL.
In Jameson Veritas
8 - Mohjho
Let me give you another term from the ancient Greeks: Hubris
Be careful what you wish for Mark.
9 - Mark Schannon
Mohjho, ???? How is it a sin of pride to say that inspiration comes from inside of ourselves rather than from some mythical creatures...unless you really believe they exist.
...and if they do, please extend to them my apologies...
In Jameson Veritas
10 - Mohjho
Mark, no apologies needed. I thought your article was well written and insightful.
My comment was just my knee jerk reaction from reading a ton of ancient Greek epics and plays.