Finding Your Muse

Word count: 362

Have you found your muse yet? Can you describe what your muse looks like? Is your muse male or female? Is your muse amusing, serious or a combination? Does your muse suggest a specific genre of stories, poems, or essays?

My muse is a skin changer. That is she can be anything from an olive tree on a windy day to a wolf stalking caribou across the arctic tundra. A muse can be anything good, bad or indifferent that generates an idea. I have read some authors whose muse is a specific person or thing and others whose muse is different each time you encounter the creature.

I can find my muse anywhere. Sometimes she appears after I have meditated on sacred scriptures. Sometimes she is there when I wake up of a morning. Sometimes she is in my nightly dreams. A writer must be aware of his or her personal muse in order to find the idea and expand it.

If you have not already found your muse, then do so as soon as possible. A writer who knows his or her muse, has a good idea of what it looks like, is better equipped to overcome writers’ block. A good way to find your muse is to do writing exercises. The exercises themselves help the writer improve the craft and find those situations that generate more ideas. Reading and reviewing the work of other writers is a good way to find your muse.

When reading and review, I don’t confine myself to a specific genre. I attempt to review a wide range of themes and subjects in a month. Sometimes the writing will arouse an emotion, either good or bad. Read and review the piece objectively, then try to find out why that particular emotion surfaces.

What was it about the piece that aroused that emotion in you? Is the emotion a reaction to a personal opinion or experience? These questions assist the writer to find his or her muse and to learn about him or herself. Self-knowledge helps writers to find the muse by finding one’s authentic self. Without knowledge of one’s authentic self find the muse is difficult.