telerib | On muses

Gossamer Commons got me thinking. (Specifically, the strips of the week of May 16.)

I don't like muses. I don't like the idea of them. I especially don't like the idea of them in a comic strip where you know darn well they're going to physically manifest.

I rambled about this for an hour last night, so I'll try to pare this down and make it coherent. Much of my dislike for muses comes from the (to me) paradox set up between Monday's comic and Wednesday's comic. On Monday, Keith asks for a boon - a muse, inspiration to write a Truly Great Novel. On Wednesday, he insists that the novel must be his work, his contribution.

Dude, how is it your novel if it takes a boon from Faerie for you to write it?

What I sense behind this idea is that, somehow, creators are not fully responsible for their ability (or inability) to create. There's this muse, see, and if she's being coy, you're kind of screwed.

Bullshit.

I will happily admit to two muse-like realities. First, to become Great often requires more than just skill and talent. There's serendipity, often, or non-artistic advantages that can be leveraged for exposure, or non-artistic skills and talents that amplify the artistic ones, or resources like time and money, or a weird genius twist to the brain that lets someone see differently than anyone who came before.

Second, that it does help to have something you feel moved to create about. That's your 1% inspiration.

The other 99% is, as Edison famously said, persperation. Let me tell you a story.

In college, I knew this guy who wanted to be a writer, either of the Great American Novel sort or of the game designer sort. "So write something," I said to him, because I had heard that the way to become a writer is to write.

"I can't," he said. "I have to wait for the muse." I felt a little sad for him, because I knew he wasn't going to become a writer waiting for his muse to show up.

Maybe she did. It was either a muse, or boredom. He ended up leaving college and getting a Real Job which was actually pretty boring but had Internet access, and his boss couldn't see his computer screen from the door. The thing that caught his attention - the 1% inspiration - was an RPG he'd just discovered: In Nomine.

He started writing. First, just kind of silly stuff as the mood struck him. Then, earnest but vaguely fanboy stuff. With more experience, he began to create things that filled holes in the RPG - things other people picked up and used because they just fit so well into so many games. He'd developed a deep understanding of the setting and what it needed, as well as his own style and voice. Developed. It didn't spring out of thin air, fully formed. It sprang out of post after post after post of IN material.

The initial infatuation wore off eventually. He set a goal, one year, to write something every day, based on the In Nomine calendar. He didn't finish the year, but that was beside the point. He was done with waiting for the muse. He didn't need her - he had a calendar. A calendar. He could have used the daily headline of the NYT instead.

Does he have a talent for looking at the mundane and fitting it into In Nomine in a new and interesting way? Absolutely. Is it easier some days than others? Yes. Do I still hear the fits of self-doubt when he wonders if he'll ever write anything new and interesting again, because he hasn't had anything really interesting pop into his head for a few days? Yup.

Does he keep writing anyway? You betcha.

You can train yourself to find inspirations. You can train yourself to find other people's inspirations - I've gotten pretty good at picking up on random things that Moe can turn into IN fodder. You can be your own muse.

Will you be Great? Who the heck knows? Inspiration is only a tiny part of Greatness. Lots of people have lots of ideas, and many of them are probably Great. A few of those people will have the talent, skill, determination, and resources to act on those ideas. And a very, very few of those people will get the recognition that they deserve. Life's not fair that way. Making up muses to blame for it is just kind of silly.