Thursday, February 11, 2010

The Muse Reigns


I had a great birthday on Monday. One of the best because I had a great week leading up to it.

It wasn't one of my biggest writing weeks but muse-ically it was fine.My writing reached a level I've been waiting for, in organization, production and inspiration. It was like the Avatar soundtrack on the Visualizer of Itunes -vibrant, fluid, exciting. My imagination showed up. Three or four mornings I awoke with full scenes in my head. I was able to work on three stories at the same time. I persisted even through reformatting my hard drive and losing time reloading software. Obstacles appeared and I still accomplished my writing goals. It was like muse fireworks.

I tried out a new software program that is a great brainstorming/story organizing tool - you may have heard of the Snowflake method. This is the new software that was designed around that concept. You can use it at the beginning or any point during your writing. (More on that later.)

The difference, although I guess it could be the moon phase, hormones (or lack thereof), a good horoscope or a cosmic birthday present, was the return to using a planner.

The night of the Super Bowl - DID I MENTION WE WON IT? -OH RIGHT! I lay awake going over and over the game. Then came these little worries about tasks I might forget to do. That's when I realized, I've been devoting way too much time in the last several years to worrying about forgetting something. For the last two weeks, that hasn't been a part of my day because I took those concerns and gave them to the Day-Timer to hold for me.

This has loosed my muse. Let's see if it lasts. The real key is in letting it go once you've written it down. And in being disciplined enough to then look at the list when you finish writing and get those tasks completed. I'm still working on that part, lol. And the 400 word a day minimum in the journal was responsible for over 5k of the 13k I wrote.

Of course, the biggest birthday present was the Saints win. Everyone around here just felt happy for the last two weeks which cranked up to euphoric with the surprising win on Sunday.

Monday, the big day, I went to see Avatar, again. I realize Avatar wasn't for everyone, but for the musician, artist and writer in me, I loved the soundtrack, the vibrant beauty, and the hero's journey. Inspiring entertainment and food for my muse. Top that off with a real food - Chicken Florentine crepes from IHOP, and my favorite cake, Devils food chocolate with 7 minute frosting, baked by a friend, and the week was perfect!

Update:
By popular demand...

Hope you had a good one too! Tell me about it.

3 comments:

Bill Kirton said...

You are sounding like a seriously committed writer, Marley - not that I ever doubted it. My week was the quite varied one I blogged about and I'm wondering whether I'd be a more productive writer if I tried to emulate your organisational techniques. Fortunately, my idleness is such that I'll never find out. Glad the week was so good, though - here's to many more of them.

Unknown said...

See, Bill keeps saying how lazy he is and he writes all these books. Anyway - well done, Marley you're making me realize how lazy I am.

Happy (belated) birthday. If I knew what that delicious sounding cake was I'd get me some.

Anonymous said...

The best thing about this cake - a guy baked it. Men don't skimp on the icing! Num!

What is it about women that they never make but one recipe of the icing? I mean, if you're going to make a cake with one of the unhealthiest ingredients ever - corn syrup - why skimp?