Charming the Muse

I've spent most of my life chasing my muse, frustrated because I just can't seem to make her work for me. But, lately, things have changed. I got tired of working at things I don't love just to get by while talking about how frustrated I am with my writing. So I tried something new that is really a thing I used to to do a long time ago and isn't new at all.

I practice.

First, understand, there is this voice in my head that likes to pick at me (we all have a critic) and this is one of those things that makes her howl with glee and how foolish I am. She loves to ask me why I am bothering with this practice thing. It has no worth, after all. Aren't I meant to be writing on that book I've been working on? When I listen to her, I end up in a place that isn't at all nice, caught between wanting to write and not being able to think of any word I don't hate. I let this voice win for a very long time. But, lately, I've been thinking that, if something isn't working, it is either time to give it up (yeah, no) or reimagine it (thank you Disney).

I began at the beginning. How did I do it, why did it work? And right away I realized that I did a hell of a lot of practice. Not with sentence structure or grammar. That is for English class. With connecting to my own silly life, my own heart, my own mind. And I began to realize that it worked so well in the beginning because there were certain factors at play. Most importantly? That I accepted myself exactly where I was and didn't expect anything. Now I'm writing up to twenty pages a day and a lot of it is on that book that seemed so far away just a month ago. Now pay close attention. I'm about to tell you how I do this magic trick.

I sit down in my own life. Go dumb for a minute; what's here? What do I know? Nothing. I know nothing. And now I can give you the wisdom born in these moments of accepting that I'm not the one in charge, here. And never have been.

Artists go crazy because we want to control it. We don't want to sit down and write about the kitchen or our silly, ordinary lives. We don't want to let our minds wander around in the poetry of being us. No. We want to crack the world open. We want to be amazing and start living a life that is anywhere but here. We daydream about that endlessly. And something switches off inside. We go silent, waiting for inspiration, refusing to write or draw or paint or create if we can't be doing it in the realm of amazing. We sit stubbornly with our dreams of where we wish we were and are furious with ourselves because we can't seem to get past this stupid block. And, eventually, we go utterly mad. Like, cut off our own ears, pitch ourselves off bridges, start drinking anything that might dissolve our livers, or fall back on any drug that makes us forget that we are this sad, pathetic mess with something beautiful inside us that we just can't get on the page.

Unless.

We figure out the truth.

Imagine for a moment that a young basketball player walks up to you and says 'I don't practice. What's the point in that? My time is valuable. I'm just going to go play the games and win without ever bothering with the mundane silliness of practicing my shots. Or learning how my body works." You would look at them and know that, unless they were just granted some extraordinary talent, they are going to lose every time. Because you know that behind every great basketball player, there are countless, endless hours of practice.

I am telling you this story so you understand the insanity of saying to yourself 'I'm going to go write the greatest novel ever!' then refusing to warm up your brain, learn how it works, and find the things that put you in the zone. Which is what I now point out to my critic when she, inevitably, starts whining about all the time I spend examining my life. And, if I am not proof enough, go look up Charles Johnson, Anaïs Nin, or any other author worthwhile. I promise they have a basement full of practice notebooks or computer files full of random ramblings.

And this is how you do it.

You have to sit still. Get very dumb. Stop thinking about the life you want. The money, the fame, or even just the book you are trying to write that you know will be so great. If you can just remember what it was about. Start thinking about where you are. Love it. Hate it. I don't care. Just be in it. Set a timer for 10 minutes (and aim for three ten minute timed writings every morning when you get up), and start writing. Do. Not. Stop. Keep the pen (or fingers) moving for the whole ten minutes.

"Start where you are," I tell my niece as she struggles to put the first line on the page. "Start where you are," I tell myself as I start hating myself for not working on something transcendent. Start where you are. Sit down in your own damn life and step into it. Use simple words. Find the beauty in your refrigerator - I'm writing this in my kitchen. Find the truth of you in the color of your walls or the carnival glass pitcher on the table. You don't have to stay here; follow the pitcher to that long ago day when your sister was still alive and your Rottweiler scared the mailman so badly that he practically threw the damn thing at the front door, insured package be damned, and ran for the hills. Remember the way your sister laughed, though she'd stopped laughing by then because she was so sick and cold all the time. Remember that, for a singular moment, she forgot she was going to die and just laughed.

So you want a different life. Who doesn't? This is where you are now and it has the beautiful, amazing honor of being the present. It doesn't matter what tomorrow will bring. Yesterday? Worth remembering, but try not to live there. This, right here, right now, is what is real. Embrace it and use it. I always tell my niece that I made friends with my demons and turned them into angels. Those things we think are holding us down are the very things that will give us a hand up, if we learn to look at them in the right way. Take the stones you are carrying around on your back and use them to build a staircase.

Get dumb. Sit with the life you have. Stop running from it. You cannot chase the muse down; she's quicksilver and smoke. But, if you start examining the here and now and really letting it in, she will come sit on your lap. The muse does not live in the hopes and dreams of tomorrow's life. She only exists in the now. And, if you can get her in to examine the pockmarked walls or the way the light comes in through the windows, then you can ask her about the novel you are trying to write; she's probably got plenty to say about your main character's mother or the way her puppy ate the couch yesterday.

Do you see? Start where you are, Darlings. The magic you want so badly, the thing you have been chasing for so long is right here and now. It has been with you all along.