Sue said:
I don't really have a "muse". Sometimes I hear Lois and Clark talking in my head. They're just little snippets of conversation that I jot down and file away until I can figure out the context.
Seriously - most of my stories start out with a definite beginning and ending and everything that happens in between is just the characters talking me through it. I've written banter on the back of a bank deposit slip, on grocery receipts, the envelope my electric bill came in and sometimes even on the palm of my hand when nothing else was available.
That's not a muse. That's an inconvenient and sadistic imagination at work.
Now,
this post I can relate to... much more so that I can relate to the whole idea of having a 'muse', named or not.
If I ever mention having a muse, my tongue is lodged very firmly in my cheek. I'd use 'muse' as a kind of shorthand to disguise the fact that I
can't tell where my words or ideas come from, half the time.
Like Sue, I've scribbled notes down on the most unlikely scraps of paper... including napkins in restaurants and the backs of receipts.
Inconvenient, yes. Sadistic, maybe. But it is the entirely inexplicable way in which stories sometimes seem to write themselves that makes me love the creative process.
Pity I haven't felt that kind of creative power at work in the longest while. One of these days, though...
Chris
