If you have not begun listening to my new novel, I’m Dead. Press Play., you can easily catch up. Each installment is only a few minutes long. Click here to see all the installments listed in one place.
In this week’s column, I continue reflecting on my experience writing it, this time with some musings on the Muses.
I remember a puzzle I had when I was a kid. It was called, interestingly, “the Brain,” and it consisted of a stack of plastic disks with eight pegs sticking up out of them. You could move only one or two pegs at a time while the others remained locked in place. The object was to move all the pegs to the center and/or out again. I had trouble at first, but eventually I noticed, to my surprise, that my fingers started flicking the pegs in and out in a pattern that moved the puzzle toward completion. It was eerie.
This is not something out of a Poe story. It actually happened.
The Magic of the Muse
I was reminded of this experience when I was thinking about writing this column because something similar happened when I was writing my new novel, I’m Dead. Press Play.
Watching those fingers move and solve the puzzle seemed supernatural, but I realize now that my brain was working unconsciously. It had picked up the pattern and could send the right signals to my fingers to move the pegs even if I was not consciously directing them.
Similarly, when I was writing my novel, I was not consciously crafting the plot. Instead, I tended to write a sentence and then just wait for the next one to come. It always did — surprisingly quickly, actually — and then another would come, and then another, and then another.
I know other writers have had the same experience because we have this notion of so-called Muses, supernatural figures that inspire writers, as well as other artists, such as musicians. (The word music actually comes from muse.)
If you are a writer, musician, painter, or another kind of creative person, you probably know what I mean. Ideas come to you, and you don’t know where you got them. To the ancients, who believed in a whole host of supernatural entities, it naturally would make sense to assume that Muses delivered them.
The Waiting is the Easiest Part
I don’t believe in Muses, but I can see why someone would. We tend to think that we make things happen through conscious construction. When I have built furniture, put up crown molding, hung sheetrock, and so on, I have been firmly in control of my thoughts. I measured, cut, and attached — it was a straightforward, predictable process with no mysteries or apparent divine intervention involved (although I could have used some divine intervention the first time I installed crown moulding — a story for another time).
When I write, however, I often feel as if I am not so much creating as waiting, deciding, and then recording. That is, I let my mind run, consider what comes into it, and then choose something that seems to work.
Why does this process work? I’m not a psychologist, but I’m pretty sure it has to do with cultivating and then curating experience.
Let me explain.
For the past 50 years or so, I have been reading books, watching movies and TV shows, observing human behavior around me, listening to conversations — in short, absorbing experience. Often I take notes on what I learn, particularly from books, but almost always on content, not on form. In other words, I record, say, themes in literary works and events in history, but I don’t keep a running list of plot twists, conversational styles, or my friends’ mannerisms.
Much of this information does seep into my consciousness, though, and a lot of it is stored in my memory. When I sit down to write, it’s there, available to be used in the appropriate situation. That’s why, I think, waiting is part of the creative process. It’s as if my brain is sifting through the various memories stored there, and the role my conscious mind plays is merely curating all this material, selecting the images, scenarios, and phrases that fit.
A Library of Experience
If I’m right, then a key part of an artist’s so-called “creative process” is building a vast and varied collection of material on which to draw when writing, painting, composing, or sculpting. After all, the more you have in your “library of experience,” the more choices you have, and choice is often a good thing, especially in the process of creation — or, rather, assembly.
I use the word “assembly” because every form of art I can think of primarily involves putting things together, not creating them out of thin air. Painters put together pigments, composers arrange musical notes, writers assemble words, and all of these artists draw from a storehouse of memories, emotions, observations, and insights they have collected over their lifetimes.
There is something to be said for constraints, which can feed creativity, but, generally speaking, I think it’s safe to say that a vast library of experience allows an artist to create more nuanced, more insightful, more moving work, just as a large stock of ingredients allows a chef to prepare extraordinary dishes.
Experiences, then, are the real Muses. We collect them throughout our lives — sometimes deliberately and sometimes accidentally — and then they speak to us like mysterious figures in the mist. In this sense, writing a novel, at least for me, is less a form of creation and more a matter of curating experiences.
I want to hear about your Muses. How does your inspiration influence your writing?
I loved reading this email. Love how you express and put it all together, I get a huge inner yes! I resonate. Missed reading Part 1, which I am just abt to do, but wanted to share how much I resonated with your writing.