Is Your Muse Lost?

What’s your image of Writing?

When I’m not paying attention, I know mine tends to be a wonderfully-romanticized picture of sitting down at the computer (anywhere — my office, a cafe, home, on a bench at the lake — it doesn’t matter) and letting fingers fly.

I yearn for the day when I will have so much to say and the elegantly flowing words to say it that my fingers won’t even be able to keep up with my well-formulated thoughts.

Each day, I will awake with a Message on my fingertips and the itch to Get It Down as soon as possible.

Boatloads of material will regularly appear, ready for dissemination (and we talking oil-tankers, not dinghies here!).

Ahh….how does that fit with your own image? Are you with me here?

On the other hand, when I am paying attention, I know that this is just not the way that writing works. At least not most of the time for most material.

I know writing is at best a “thinking out loud” process - sometimes my thoughts spill out and make sense first run. (Like those magical times when my listener says “oh! that was good! Can you just repeat that so I can write it down?” Sadly, most times I cannot.)

Most often when I “think out loud”, I stumble around, re-phrase things, have to edit down my ramblings to make a concise, coherent thought. In a really good conversation, the input from the Other actually helps me create and clarify my thoughts and eventually we arrive at something comprehensible to both of us that also “feels right” to me.

And that’s what writing is like as well.

Isn’t it funny how we expect our writing to go so smoothly and yet have a tolerance for (even enjoy!) rambling conversation that eventually leads somewhere productive?

What would happen if we envisioned our writing as a conversation with an Other (the computer, our research participants, our advisor or committee, our study group)? If we entered into it expecting to have to struggle a bit to get things clear? (And were suspicious of lack of struggle — like those people who just agree with us, even when they don’t mean it.)

In order to have this conversation regularly, we need to engage with our Listener.

So I offer this quote from film director Billy Wilder. I hope it will either get you to turn up for the conversation or give you hope for the appearance of easy flow from time to time ;-)…

You have to show up daily so your Muse knows where to find you.