Saturday, April 30, 2011

Dragged Along Behind the Muse

As with most 10-year-olds, the muse has a heck of a lot more energy than I do most days.  She wants to be off shooting up a nest of crooked vampires when I want to take a rest for the evening after having crammed a full time job and school into my schedule.  Eventually, she makes my writing hand itch so bad that its almost physical, and I have to get up and put fingers to keyboard just to make it stop.

At this point, she drags me flailing through the streets of the Empire, riding shotgun with Sven Nulis (who I think she has a crush on, just saying...) as he kills the baddies, solves the crimes, and wrestles with his self-doubt.  All in all, it's a bit of a head trip, and I crawl my abused self under the covers for some well-needed rest at the end of it all.

The worst cases of an Attack of Muse occur when I absolutely can't do anything about it.  I'll be running parts at work or sitting in lecture, and a scene pops into my head.  Angst and blood galore, and I can't pick up a pencil and jot it to paper.  It's maddening!  Especially because the scene looks so perfect in those moments, and when I try to recreate it later, it just isn't the same.

So I bought a digital recorder to take dictation in the car...and subsequently left it at home when I went out for lunch and then to the coffee shop for a long day of playing with the muse.  It's days like this that I consider getting a day job, forgetting the degree, and writing as full time as I could possibly get.  Then I remember my dad's you've-pulled-a-stupid look and hit the books again.

Can't win for losing.  So, the muse and I will continue to play drag and be-dragged until I finish school or start getting paid a decent wage to get an education.