When you lose a muse

I’m going through something and I’m keeping those details intentionally vague. But it feels like a loss and I have little to no control over it. It just is. And I look at my drafts, those almost done and those in the works, and I feel the loss there. And it hurts.

I know a dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste. I know I’ll get back in the game. But tonight it feels like real hurt. Maybe you’ve felt it too. Maybe you will tell me it will be alright.

My muse just left me too, but for no particular reason. I went out in the woods for a few days, came back and just stared at the keyboard. Finally just ended the story to get it submitted.

Thank you for relating. I’m torn between wanting to write more and closing the door to speed acceptance, closure and things like that. I don’t know what I will do yet.

Charmolypi said:

Thank you for relating. I’m torn between wanting to write more and closing the door to speed acceptance, closure and things like that. I don’t know what I will do yet.

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Just wait if you have to. Things happen in our lives that sometimes flush the inspiration to write--for a while, anyway.

Lilith Babellon. An old friend and a muse.

She passed in 2014 I think.

I still miss her.

I was warned, by her friends, "That's a strange old bird!"

Well, I'm attracted to strange people.

NotWise said:

Just wait if you have to. Things happen in our lives that sometimes flush the inspiration to write--for a while, anyway.

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I guess I have to follow time’s rhythm then. I feel a greater desire to write but I am afraid it will make it all hurt more.

I never used him explicitly as a character, at least not in lit intended to be published. But he was like a whisper in my ear when I wrote. Now the whisper is saying “good bye”.

The voices in my head haven't forced me to write fiction for awhile.

They're likely reacting to my general life situation.

They could start whipping me soon.

Or not.

My personal way of coping, with almost anything in life, has been to write my way to the other side. It has helped me process loss and heartache more times than I can count.

MagicaPractica said:

My personal way of coping, with almost anything in life, has been to write my way to the other side. It has helped me process loss and heartache more times than I can count.

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Gosh, Mags, you won't get any arguing from me on that one. Even if the writing is just a distraction, it's worth it. But usually (in my experience), the writing tends to suggest a solution. As an old girlfriend used to say: 'Let's get a box of Black Beauties (pencils) and see where this leads.'

SamScribble said:

As an old girlfriend used to say: 'Let's get a box of Black Beauties (pencils) and see where this leads.'

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Then there was the constipated mathematician who worked it out with a pencil...

Charmolypi said:

I’m going through something and I’m keeping those details intentionally vague. But it feels like a loss and I have little to no control over it. It just is. And I look at my drafts, those almost done and those in the works, and I feel the loss there. And it hurts.

I know a dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste. I know I’ll get back in the game. But tonight it feels like real hurt. Maybe you’ve felt it too. Maybe you will tell me it will be alright.

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I hesitate to say I know what you mean. I've learned the hard way recently no one can ever know exactly what someone else feels with a loss and claiming to can serve only to piss that someone else off, unintentionally of course.

I will, however, say that two months, two days, four hours, and twenty minutes ago, I pretty much figured I'd never write again. Survival was questionable. Writing, much less writing erotica? Fuck that. Wasn't going to happen.

Only, several calmer and wiser heads responded to my pain, here on the boards, in emails, and even in real life, and encouraged me to just try. Not to do it, you understand. But, just to try. Even if the results might not be anything I would ever want to share, I should try.

I don't remember exactly what point I knuckled under, but I eventually decided to try. If for no other reason than to shut the fucking nags up. And abso-fucking-lutely hated it. This was soooo not going to work. (Ha! Take that and stick it up your asses, you meddling bastards!)

I took a day or two to wallow in my vindication. And misery.

Then, I decided to try again. And it didn't work any better the second time.

I'm not sure if it was during the middle of the seventh or eighth try that seemed to be running down what was becoming a well worn track that life decided to rear back and give me another, less painful, punch in the nuts.

It didn't take quite as long, but still a bit of a time before I decided to give it another try.

Somewhere along the way, I developed a goal. I was determined to get an entrant into the Holiday contest. No real particular reason, I don't think. I wasn't particularly enamored of the story that just wouldn't fuck off and let me do something more interesting. And I damn sure didn't figure my diminished efforts would make a decent showing (still don't particularly expect it). But, it was a goal. Maybe, just maybe, if I could get a story done and entered, it would be a sign that... Well, everything wouldn't be alright. Nothing can be "alright" ever again so far as I was (and am) concerned. But, it would be better.

Time ticked away and I'm too embarrassed to admit just how many times I completely scrapped the project and started over from scratch considering the end result, but nineteen hours ago, I met my goal. I'd written something and submitted it.

So, anyway, Charmolypi, I can't honestly say that everything will be alright, precisely. I can't even tell you that you will find the same joy, or execute what you do manage to write with the same panache. Maybe it will and I'm just not far enough down the road from where you stand to see it, yet.

But, what I can tell you from my own experience is that if you want to write again, and drive yourself to it hard enough, you can find you have another story to tell.

At any rate, whichever path through the woods, you choose, best wishes for trailing winds and the sun out of your eyes for a brighter tomorrow.

I've never had a muse. I don't think I'd know what to do with one?

How does that work exactly?

I'm not really what I would consider an author, more of a hobby writer. But it occurs to me that the worst writers of either music or stories are those who have not tasted the pains of life. While this may not bring back one's muse, the pain will probably one day be revealed as a powerful inspiration for even better work. Perhaps just try to observe the pain, analyze it, taste it and smell it... and one day, when the suffering is past, write about it with real authority and believability. Maybe that is all you can do for now, until the worst has passed.

Charmolypi said:

I guess I have to follow time’s rhythm then. I feel a greater desire to write but I am afraid it will make it all hurt more.

I never used him explicitly as a character, at least not in lit intended to be published. But he was like a whisper in my ear when I wrote. Now the whisper is saying “good bye”.

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It took me thirty-five years before I purged one fallen angel; and I've just started on another series that I realise, as I recently finished the first chapter, is probably me about to purge another long relationship from a similar long time ago.

But they're not muses leaving me, they're ghosts arriving to stay.

MagicaPractica said:

My personal way of coping, with almost anything in life, has been to write my way to the other side. It has helped me process loss and heartache more times than I can count.

Click to expand...

SamScribble said:

Gosh, Mags, you won't get any arguing from me on that one. Even if the writing is just a distraction, it's worth it.
'

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Nor me !
The simple act of 'getting it out of your head' was sufficient for me: it worked for personal bereavement and cancer.
I found it helpful to straighten the thought process, because trying to explain the problem to someone else gets too confusing unless there's a certain logic.

Uh huh. Several of my stories here were inspired by or written for somebody who was very important in my life; then we had a long drawn-out breakup. I have enough distance on the stories now that I can separate them from their muse, but it does feel a little weird sometimes - especially when people ask for a continuation of one of them and I have to say no, that chapter of my life is done.

I have another one part-written that's inspired by the breakup in a roundabout way. I don't know whether I'll ever finish that one, or whether I'll post it if I do. But I've found other things to write about in the meantime.

I know where you're coming from. A couple of my stories ("Fingerprints on my Heart" and "Summertime Sadness") were inspired by my looking back at an old relationship that meant a huge amount to me at the time and the stories were in part a way - very fictionalized - of helping me work thru that.

My Muse comes and goes more than my Ex. So I treat it accordingly. When it's here I use it for all I can get. (Not just writing) and when it goes I find something else to keep me occupied til it comes back. Guns work well for that.

SamScribble said:

Gosh, Mags, you won't get any arguing from me on that one. Even if the writing is just a distraction, it's worth it. But usually (in my experience), the writing tends to suggest a solution. As an old girlfriend used to say: 'Let's get a box of Black Beauties (pencils) and see where this leads.'

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Absolutely. When I say write through, I should probably clarify that I mean journaling and/or fiction writing. I think things can come out either way. I tend to, personally, write a few pages of long hand journaling as a brain dump and solutions often do come out then. But I also put difficult life events into my fiction, exorcism style.

Handley_Page said:

Nor me !
The simple act of 'getting it out of your head' was sufficient for me: it worked for personal bereavement and cancer.
I found it helpful to straighten the thought process, because trying to explain the problem to someone else gets too confusing unless there's a certain logic.

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It's not a muse I've lost, so much as a mule skinner, to whip me into action. Story ideas are no hu-hu, no problem. I'm constrained by finding time in my busy schedule of medical visits, and enough brain power after medications to concentrate on storytelling, to actually WRITE those ideas out.

I've a couple series to finish, and a few half-done pieces, and detailed layouts involving: dissolute young Americans invading circa 1905 France; adventures with a gyroplane, and with a modern steam car (an evolved Doble engine fitted into a VW Karmann Ghia with the condenser-radiator in a rear wing); a cycle of standalones about a sloppy time-traveler; and maybe more about a photographer.

Incest and near-incest; romance; historical fuckathons; using and used federal agents; Scooby-Doo chases; synchronous disasters (San Francisco quaked and Vesuvius erupted on the same 1906 day); multiracial groupfucks; snarky interjections. I've got-em all!

I don't need a muse. I need a cattle prod.

Charmolypi said:

I’m going through something and I’m keeping those details intentionally vague. But it feels like a loss and I have little to no control over it. It just is. And I look at my drafts, those almost done and those in the works, and I feel the loss there. And it hurts.

I know a dirty mind is a terrible thing to waste. I know I’ll get back in the game. But tonight it feels like real hurt. Maybe you’ve felt it too. Maybe you will tell me it will be alright.

Click to expand...

I understand what you mean. I haven't submitted a story to Lit since 2012 (no, not under this name). The desire to write is there, yet it's not. I've lost my muse. (As well as allowing some trolls here to beat me down...but I persist and try to stay optimistic.)

Here's hoping your muse returns.

Thank you everyone. You’ve given me some thoughtful perspectives and also the comfort of not feeling alone in the thick of this.

I think when the vice grip from my vagus nerve clamping down on my lungs and heart finally eases, I will try and write the goodbye that I will likely not otherwise get a chance to have.

Someone asked how muses work. For me it just a point of simple human connection. Not love, but not lust. Just a pure space to bare my soul and heart. And it was received with acceptance and reciprocated. I felt safe there, and that was the perfect place from which to write.