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Apr. 7th, 2012 03:17 pmI have, lately, been wrestling with the problem of a vanishing muse. I can remember what it was like to need to tell stories, to have more things in my brain than I could possibly write, to have things spilling insistently out. I can remember, but I can't reclaim that feeling. Writing has been more of an abstract need than an immediate need, more of a "I want to want to write" than "I want to write", and anything I write requires a major effort to get past the "oh God this is horrible what am I thinking I should just give up entirely" wall that's built up.
I miss the need to write, desperately want it back, but you can't court desire that way. I could perhaps force myself to get words out, force output, but that doesn't change the input, doesn't force the stories to come to me. Doesn't affect the story-need, the story-hunger.
And I've started to become worried that it's never going to come back. That I've lost whatever creative spark I used to have; that I will forget how to want, forget how to write, forget how to crave stories.
#
Except then I realized something.
I was walking down to farmer's market, and I was lost in my head, thinking. (The fact that one of my ears is blocked up makes it easier to lose myself there, because I can't hear outside as well as I can hear inside.) And not just thinking in general: mulling over a blog entry about what Easter means to me personally (and a tangential blog entry about personal religious beliefs and why I am what I am now and what I could have been if I weren't), and one about health (about my ear thing and the impact it has, about the fact that I can be imperfect and still happy, about the fact that I don't need to hear well to enjoy the sun on my face), and--
-- and I realized that blog entries and anecdotes and thinky thoughts are just another form of story. That I've started composing entries in my head the way I used to compose stories, and that a lot of the mental entries, like the mental stories, don't make it to "paper" and those that do aren't exactly how I envisioned them.
That I'm still writing. It's different stuff, different sources, but it's still a creative outlet.
And when I realized this, there was a general feeling of "well, duh, took you long enough to figure that out" from the creative center of my brain.
#
It doesn't change the state of my writing. Doesn't make me more able to write, doesn't break down the barriers in my head. Doesn't suddenly bring my desires into line with reality, because it doesn't change the facts that a) I want to be writing fiction, both fanfic and origfic, and b) I am not doing so.
And yet it sort of changes everything.
I miss the need to write, desperately want it back, but you can't court desire that way. I could perhaps force myself to get words out, force output, but that doesn't change the input, doesn't force the stories to come to me. Doesn't affect the story-need, the story-hunger.
And I've started to become worried that it's never going to come back. That I've lost whatever creative spark I used to have; that I will forget how to want, forget how to write, forget how to crave stories.
#
Except then I realized something.
I was walking down to farmer's market, and I was lost in my head, thinking. (The fact that one of my ears is blocked up makes it easier to lose myself there, because I can't hear outside as well as I can hear inside.) And not just thinking in general: mulling over a blog entry about what Easter means to me personally (and a tangential blog entry about personal religious beliefs and why I am what I am now and what I could have been if I weren't), and one about health (about my ear thing and the impact it has, about the fact that I can be imperfect and still happy, about the fact that I don't need to hear well to enjoy the sun on my face), and--
-- and I realized that blog entries and anecdotes and thinky thoughts are just another form of story. That I've started composing entries in my head the way I used to compose stories, and that a lot of the mental entries, like the mental stories, don't make it to "paper" and those that do aren't exactly how I envisioned them.
That I'm still writing. It's different stuff, different sources, but it's still a creative outlet.
And when I realized this, there was a general feeling of "well, duh, took you long enough to figure that out" from the creative center of my brain.
#
It doesn't change the state of my writing. Doesn't make me more able to write, doesn't break down the barriers in my head. Doesn't suddenly bring my desires into line with reality, because it doesn't change the facts that a) I want to be writing fiction, both fanfic and origfic, and b) I am not doing so.
And yet it sort of changes everything.