Invoking the Muse

Everybody is going to write a great novel one day.  Just ask them.  The only thing they are waiting for is some sort of inspiration.

They are waiting for their Muse.

Bret Anthony Johnson said that “I believe that the act of writing is itself the muse.”  I think there is merit to that idea.  Don’t wait for inspiration, just go write something, and maybe that will bring on some inspiration.

But that doesn’t mean we can’t do something to try and call the elusive Muse out of hiding.  Just as we might use writing talismans to remind ourselves that it is writing time, we might also have certain rituals to invoke the Muse.

According to what I have read:

• Friedrich Von Schiller used to keep rotten apples in his desk, then he would inhale deeply and start writing.
• Edgar Allan Poe wrote with a cat on his shoulders.
• Willa Cather read the Bible before writing.  (Which is probably preferable to reading from the French civil code every morning, which is apparently what Stendhal did while writing The Charterhouse of Parma.)

  (Source : A Writer’s Book of Days – Judy Reeves)

I don’t have any ritual per se.  I find that taking my pen in hand, and opening a clean page on a quality notebook, are usually enough to let me know it is go-time. 

Do you have any rituals?

 

2012–The end? Or the beginning?

 

Well, if the Mayans and Hollywood are to be believed, then the world is going to end later this year. 

(*cough* Loonies *cough*)

 

 

Whether they are right, or wrong, I still plan to write as if there is no tomorrow.  Last year I got a bit distracted from my writing.  For those of you who don’t know, I got myself a little bit married in November 2011.  Which may account for me being absent from NaNoWriMo last year. 

My goal(s) for this year are simple.  Write something!

I am working my way through A Writers Book of Days, and am trying to write at least 750 words every day from the prompts there.  I am trying to do it as my morning pages again, but for the most part it seems to happen whenever I get time in the day.

My goal… is to write at least 200,000 words this year.  That might sounds a little heavy, but once you take out the 50,000 I plan to do in December, it is not that hard.  It just means I have to try and write at least 200 days this year.  How hard can that be?

Rather than spending too much time on editing and doing fancy projects this year, I plan to go back to basics.  Just start writing and see where it takes me.

What are your goals or plans for 2012?