Are you there Muse? It's me, Alyssa.

There are a lot of different ways that people describe inspiration.

It comes from a muse, like Stephen King's guy in the basement. It comes from a genius, a fleeting spirit, like Elizabeth Gilbert explains in her awesome TED talk. It's something that you're born with. It's something that you look for, work for, sweat for.

These days, I feel like my muse is a toddler, an a-hole that flips people off on the freeway for no reason, a rabbit in a snare, and an overall terrible human being/spirit/mysterious entity... depending on the day.

Example: I set aside a few hours to write. I pick up a book and read for inspiration. I try to jot some lines. I read through a million blogs about the writing life, character development, and how to create a believable villian.

But I don't get much done. This time is pretty much wasted.

Another Example: I sit down on the couch to work (I write blogs like this from home for a living... doesn't sound so cool now, does it?) I tell myself I won't stop until I'm done for the day. I will not write. I will not get sidetracked by writer blogs or book reviews or try to place another 12 books on hold at the library.

I tell my muse to sit in the corner, be quiet, pencils down, do not talk to your neighbor. I tell it to save its ideas for later. I tell it not to bother me.

What happens then? The muse is quiet for awhile, I get some blogs done. I blast the new Sleigh Bells album and am pretty productive, if I say so myself.

Then the muse raises its hand.

I ignore it.

It starts jumping up and down like Hermione in Defense Against the Dark Arts. I tell it to shut up. I put on blinders and headphones and turn the music up too loud. I ignore it.

It jumps up on the desk and shouts the most spectacularly tempting crap. "What if you changed the point of view on that story you've been trying to write?!" It yells. "What if everything you say was recorded in your brain and you could read through the transcript of your entire life?!"

I sit and stare at it. I am so pissed off that the muse chooses this moment to bring me the most excellent ideas. The type of ideas I was hunting during the set "writing time" I had yesterday, and the day before that, and the day before that.

I pull off my headphones and I think about shouting to the muse, "Where were you yesterday you lazy piece of crap?! That was your designated time and you were giving me the freaking SILENT TREATMENT."

But the ideas are too good. I put the laptop away and I take out my notebook and I choose an especially colorful pen (hot pink) and I start to write.

I don't work for the rest of the day.

Now I have no idea how to set aside time to write when my muse/annoying-kid-in-the-corner-with-Great-Ideas-at-all-the-wrong-times refuses to obey. Maybe I'll try to trick it next time. I'll sit down to write a blog about "real estate West Newbury" when I really mean to get an idea and work on those stories that just aren't looking great right now.

What does it say about me that I need to use freaking REVERSE PSYCHOLOGY on a possibly non-existent spiritual thing to be able to write?

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On inspiration and dream desks

Sometimes, when I need that little extra push of inspiration, I imagine what my dream desk, office or library would look like. Basically, the amazing, unrealistic place that would turn my okay writing into something that would make Kate Atkinson beg me for advice. (Side note: I have an obsession with Kate Atkinson. More on that later.)

This is my dream desk:

I think the picture is taken in a tree house, which is another fantasy I have. Living in a tree house... maybe that's trying too hard to be an eccentric author. Like somehow developing an addiction and not showering and wearing a beret (in my tree house home) will magically turn me into J.K. Rowling.

Going along the tree house theme, this is my dream library:

I don't think this room is in a tree house, but the loft ceiling and exposed beams make it feel like one. I could imagine curling up on that comfy chair-thing for hours on end. Or just staring off in the distance to let my ideas percolate in my brain. I do that a lot.

Anyway, this is something that helps get my inspiration going! What motivational tricks do you have up your sleeve?

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On writing: Lessons from the king

     I'm trying to be a writer, but it's harder than I thought it would be.

     As I started putting my ideas to paper, (I currently have two major ideas for novels), I soon realized that I needed help honing my craft. Whatever that "craft" is. I started shopping for helpful writing advice on the internet and in books. The first writing book I picked up was On Writing by Stephen King, which has been hailed by many a successful author as the go-to guide to writing. The big kahuna.

    I've decided to share what I've learned so far from the King in the form of memorable quotes from the memoir. But believe me, there are far more nuggets in the rest of the book than I'm including here. This thing is chock-full of noteworthy guidance!

from On Writing:

Let's get one thing clear right now, shall we? There is no Idea Dump, no Story Central, no Island of the Buried Bestsellers; good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. You job isn't to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.

If you write (or paint or dance of sculpt or sing, I suppose), someone will try to make you feel lousy about it, that's all. I'm not editorializing, just trying to give you the facts as I see them.

The idea that creative endeavor and mind-altering substances are entwined is one of the great pop-intellectual myths of our time.

It starts with this: put your desk in the corner, and every time you sit down there to write, remind yourself why it isn't in the middle of the room. Life isn't a support-system for art. It's the other way around.

With the passive voice, the writer usually expresses fear of not being taken seriously... With adverbs, the writer usually tells us he or she is afraid because he/she isn't expressing himself/herself clearly, that he or she is not getting the point or the picture across.

You cannot hope to sweep someone else away by the force of your writing until it has been done to you.

Rudeness should be the second-to-least of your concerns. The least of all should be polite society and what it expects. If you intend to write as truthfully as you can, your days as a member of polite society are numbered, anyway.

 Description begins with the writer's imagination, bu should finish in the reader's. When it comes to actually pulling this off, the writer is much more fortunate than the filmmaker, who is almost always doomed to show too much... including, in nine cases out of ten, the zipper running up the monster's back.

Some people don't want to hear the truth, of course, but that's not your problem. What would be is wanting to be a writer without wanting to shoot straight.

     This is what I've learned so far from the King. But that's not really the hard part, it is? Now I've got to figure out how to actually use this stuff in my writing, without coming off as a watered-down wannabe. Yikes.

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