Muse

One of the constant frustrations in my writing life is my muse.  I know the most successful writers are the ones who sit down every day for 6-8 hours, with a break here and there, and they write.  Good, bad or indifferent, they treat it as they should – like it’s their job. It is a job they love, but they don’t sit around waiting for a bolt of creative lightening to strike them.  This is the path I should endeavor to follow, because my muse seems to be a rather elusive b*#ch who only comes out during times it’s impossible for me to get away.  (such as when I’m performing a vital service for my disabled child or husband)  I can’t will her to come, and she usually tends to bring flashbacks of traumatic times in my life that I either can’t ,or don’t feel I should, share.

A good example of this is the two drafts I’ve been trying to finish for this blog over the past weekend.  They sit there, tapping their figurative fingers on the page,  reminding me that they’re still waiting to be published.  They want closure, damnit!  (Not afraid to use guilt, my unfinished pages)  Even now I’m sneaking this time while my husband waits for me to come to bed, knowing I have to be up at 5:30 to get my son ready for school.  I begged my muse or the spirit of creativity for what I call a “sending” a couple of days ago.  A “sending” is a dream that is so vivid I know it contains a message, an important one.  My begging has produced a dream of being a character in my son’s favorite cartoon, “Dragonball Z“, and coming away with the lesson “it’s okay to struggle with your writing, just because it’s hard doesn’t mean you aren’t allowed/destined, to do it.”  The other “gift” involved two flashbacks of being molested as a child and a teen, once by a family friend, once by a stranger.  I don’t feel comfortable sharing details of the former, but the latter situation involved me sitting down on a seat next to a rather inebriated person while waiting for the bathroom at the back of an airplane.  I was going on a family trip somewhere.  People didn’t talk about things like this when I was growing up, so when this stranger (who was a drunk businessman) started secretively putting his hand up my shirt (his other hand held a screwdriver, the drink, not the tool) I didn’t know what to do.  My parents were far forward in their seats, no passengers could see us, and there were no flight attendants around.  Luckily, before he got much further around the “bases” a bathroom door opened and I ran into it and locked the door as fast as I could.  I felt dirty, guilty, wondered what I had done to provoke such behavior. I felt a deep hatred for myself and for the man.  I wept quietly, and prayed he had stumbled back to his seat before I was done.  As it happened, he hadn’t and he gave me a lascivious look that seemed to imply we had both just participated in something that had brought mutual enjoyment.  I got back to my seat as quickly as possible, and away from him.

This is what comes up when I try to “write what I know.”  So tell me, any followers I have left, what do I do with this collection of gropings, and nastiness that emerges when I dig deeply into my mind?  As a last plea, what do I say to my husband when I walk into the bedroom now and he says, “You know you have to get up early, couldn’t you have done this some other time?”  Ah, the delights of the writer’s life.

May your own life be peaceful, and filled with blessings.  Namaste‘