noun: Muse; plural noun: Muses

1. (in Greek and Roman mythology) each of nine goddesses, the daughters of Zeus and Mnemosyne, who preside over the arts and sciences.
2. a person or personified force who is the source of inspiration for a creative artist.

 

Muses for artists have been around for centuries.

Painters, authors, sculptors, fashion designers, and anyone in the creative fields have all mentioned having muses. I believe I have a muse. She’s 45 degrees right behind my right shoulder. But many believe they don’t exist.

So, if non-existent beings called muses don’t give us our ideas, then we ourselves must be coming up with them.

It would have to be us who creates the inspiration for ourselves, using both hemispheres and all four lobes of our brain together to have thoughts from everything we’ve taken into our minds via our five senses, and then form a cohesive idea that will turn out to be whatever we create.

This, of course, is entirely possible. Just as with having an inner critic, or a thought process where we talk to ourselves, plucking thoughts and inspiration from thin air could be entirely on us as well.

Would that be so bad? Of course not. It would mean that everything comes from us.

So, when it comes to muses, it’s okay if you don’t believe you have one.  It’s okay if you do believe you have one. Not all authors do, and no one said you actually have to have a muse or believe in them.

Mine isn’t around all the time. She flitted into my life in the late ’80s and ’90s when I wrote songs, and again in 2006 with my first novel, and then in 2008, and 2010 with the second and third. And then came in hot in 2013 with the fourth novel and four non-fiction books.

She whipped herself into a frenzy to get me to start writing my T.K. Wrathbone supernatural paranormal crocktales in 2015, and then my L.J. Diva Porn Star Brothers family saga series in 2016-17. She wouldn’t let up, she was whipping out ideas left, right, and centre, and I had to write them down so I didn’t forget them and then inform her that I had to finish the current book I was writing because she’d given me that idea too and I couldn’t just jump around. She’d quieten down until the next idea and then start again.

In late 2019 she gave me a few ideas for two novels, but since early 2020, she’s rarely visited as I’ve been suffering from burnout. She popped in long enough in 2021 to give me ideas for my four Wrathbone stories, for a novel and its sequel, and two months later popped back to give me an idea for what turned out to be last year’s novel, Anything for You. She gave me the ideas, but I had to slog my guts out doing the work. She just left me to it.

She popped in long enough last year to give me the idea for the novel I’ve written this year, then popped in this year to give me two scenes I hadn’t thought of as I was writing it, and then some ideas for reorganizing the writing to-do list. Other than that, she hasn’t been around.

Then again, maybe she was just waiting on the sidelines for me to get my shit together and realize that I needed to cut and cull my entire business life to get back to where I needed to be for her to get the ideas and creativity flowing again, and for me to delete half of my socials, close my jewellery business and two of my websites, creating three manageable sites that could basically run themselves so I could go back to creating.

Who knows, maybe your muse is just on the sidelines waiting for you to receive her. Maybe, you just need to let go of everything and open yourself to other beings, other voices, other ideas, and beliefs.

Maybe, your muse was always there, just waiting for you to find her and hear her.