March 21, 2014

Cross My Roads And Hope Like Hell I Find The Middle Of The Other Side

I often like to do word play with my post titles, mostly to see if anyone can get the gist of what my actual intentions are for a given blog post, which in this case would be this one.

For the past few weeks, okay the past month, my muse has basically gone out to lunch with no forwarding address to speak of. Which means that no inspiration is to be had, no wishful thinking to be thought about, no creativity in action, and most importantly, no excess verbiage to unleash on to an unsuspecting general public, or at the very least, an unsuspecting writer.

To get everyone up to speed, I have to come to screeching halt without a seat belt with my latest writing project. The main reason as to why is that I basically gave up trying to figure how to re-write a key scene that leads into the final climax (get your mind out of the gutter) of the story. Try as I might, I shot blanks like...well....hmmm....you know (gotta keep this PG-13), I just shot blanks.

You can probably well imagine that my inability to do anything with my writing has put me in a rotten frame of mind. Now couple that rotten frame of mind with an unhappy work environment, and presto! you got a person whose outlook on life is nastier than the media's loathing of GWB (which is saying quite a lot if you think about it).

Take that rotten outlook on life and add some self loathing courtesy of Facebook. You know the kind of self loathing I'm talking about. You read the rah-rah-rah updates from your fellow writers and you want to do one of the following things: post select descriptive adjectives about your hatred of those kind of updates; disattach yourself from those writer friends and writer's groups and continue practicing your self loathing.

Or, you can come up with a 3rd thing to do. A 3rd thing that runs completely counter to who and what you are (like the President suddenly developing a spine like Bill Clinton). A 3rd thing that suddenly brings your muse back from her one month lunch break and makes her to jump inside your head and scream like she's experiencing the biggest O in her entire short life, "Yes! Yes! Yes! Do it! Do it! Do it! Now! Now! Now!"

What's that 3rd thing you might ask? Well, if you're me, it's the slush novella that gave you nightmares whenever decided to work on. The slush novella that made the words pour out you faster than the paparazzi creaming their collective shorts over unlimited access to the hottest A-list Hollyweird celebrities. The slush novella that gave you the creeps just when you opened the notebook to refresh your memory. The slush novella that almost one year later, you still can't bring yourself to tell anyone, and I mean anyone, what the general plot is beyond involving two serial killers. The slush novella that runs counter to how you actually feel about those kind of stories to begin with.

That's right, that slush novella.

A writer friend of my on Facebook just came out with a new book about a serial killer, which in turn got me to thinking about my unfinished slush novella. Well, it didn't really, as I was already drifting that way with my thinking to begin with as the 1Q of 2014 has really sucked major moose testicles, so with her advertising her new book crime book (did you know that Amazon ranks weird categories like serial killers?) it was more like a hard shove off a tall cliff.

Anywho, I started thinking about switching speeds, from re-writing to original writing, but still staying within the same genre. And can you believe my muse decided to grace my conscience with her presence? Who knew that I had such a seriously F'd up muse? Certainly not me. I've always thought that my muse was a vibrant, sensual yet hard driven individual (yes, my muse is female) that took nor gave no quarters. But to suddenly find out that my muse has a sick puppy dog imagination simply blows me away.

So that is my crossroads for the incoming weekend: continue rewriting a worth novella or restart a novella with original writing.

Sometimes, it really does suck to be me the writer.

(c) 2014 by G.B. Miller. All Rights Reserved.

9 comments:

  1. It's those writing dry spells when I simply forget I ever wrote anything before and do things completely unrelated. That, somehow, upsets my muse terribly. And the muse starts poking and prodding until I pay attention.

    Hope you have a lovely weekend, G. :)

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  2. Now I am really curious, but as I can't read anything too violent without having nightmares, I shouldn't be. But I am!

    And firing blanks, to me, has always meant...yeah.

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  3. Talon: I've had a few of those over the years and this one is no exception. My muse has been knocking on the chamber door for the past few weeks, but lately it has gotten more insistent.

    M: This one will give you nightmares, trust me on this one. However, I will give you a hint. If you know of the film "8MM" featuring Nicholas Cage, then you're heading down the right path.

    It used to mean something different when I was younger, but now....yup.

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  4. The only comment I can think to make here is that I am not from Hulbert, Oklahoma and I have no muse today.

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  5. G.A.: Perhaps that is where your ISP is based out of and sometimes not having a muse is a good thing. :D

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  6. Reading what you've said about facebook is why I refuse to have anything to do with it. Blogging and Pinterest are stressful enough. :D

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  7. Joey: I find Facebook to be a double-edged sword, in that it's great to keep in touch with friends from faraway, but it's a major time suck/psyche suck to one's sanity.

    Factoring in my various experiences in the cyberworld has left me with a healthy sense of paranoia/disgust with my dealings with FB. So unlike most people who are active on FB, I keep it my appearances to a bare minimum.

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  8. I never thought of a Muse having an O, but actually that's a great metaphor.

    Whatever works for you, I'm glad that it's working.
    :-)

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  9. S.R.: Thanks.

    It's sort of working, so to speak. We shall see what pops up in the coming days/weeks.

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