Debating/Fighting With Muses

BLOGGING ABOUT WHATEVER

ENTRY - 16

TITLE: Debating/Fighting With Muses

AUTHOR: J. William Bell

DATE POSTED: 2025-11-19

If you do any kind of writing on a regular basis, and have a basic understanding of Christianity; then you will eventually have to admit that it is easier to herd and baptize cats than it is to maintain a peaceful and predictable relationship with your Muse (or in my case: Muses). Now before you go and start thinking that I am admitting to being insane, just remember; a vivid imagination is useful when you have to write fiction, or figure out some way to write non-fiction that actually keeps the audience interested and engaged with your words.

So, as a disclaimer: The following words are obviously more of an indicator of my eccentric imagination than a literal cry for help (should the figments of my imagination somehow become physically present and real; I will then let out a literal cry for help... unless they offer me wine and chocolate... everybody has their weaknesses).

For the sake of efficiency, lets just say one of my Muses goes by the name of "Bekki," and yes, I am aware that particular name is more often spelled out as B-E-C-K-Y, but one of the things that makes Bekki interesting, and a reliable pain in the gluteus maximus, is that she likes to be unconventional. Imagine a young woman who has cut her hair into an unusual style, dyed it an unnatural colour, and has taken to wearing esoteric jewelry upon non-traditional parts of her anatomy, along with a sense of fashion that would've been called punk-rock, alt-rock, or goth-lite ten years ago. You know she would be gorgeous if she stuck with a more traditional presentation of feminine fashion, and she knows it too. And you only find out the hard way that she can be very unpleasant when you try to diplomatically point that out to her.

So what kind of disagreements/debates would I have with Bekki the Muse? Imagine her figuratively hammering me with the following questions:

"Do you really have to spell that word that way? Why not just invent a new word instead? That would totally mess with the heads of those traditional-minded fuddy-duddies!"

"You're giving that character a dull name?! Why not something more original?!? Yeah; yeah; I know, this character is, at best, just a tertiary character, and you don't have any plans on using them again; but, c'mon! When was the last time somebody read a short-story where the butler's name was Krapphauzenn?!!!"

"Yuck! You're making the princess in this story just another ballgown-wearing, well-mannered, and soft-spoken classy young lady!!?!? I bet she's also blonde and busty too! You can do better than this!!! Give her a weird hobby. Make her bald. Just make her into something that isn't just another boring and predictable stereotype!!!!!!!"

And Bekki still cannot seem to understand why I gleefully toss her down a-completely-imaginary-but-bottomless pit every once in a while.

And then there is the muse whom we shall call Karen... No unconventionality for Karen. Karen is more worried about upsetting the audience than she is about being unpredictably original. Think of her as also beautiful, in a sexy-librarian kind of way, but the beauty is only skin deep. Underneath that sweet outer layer is a lot of unpleasant, paranoid, and stubborn mega-bee-otch (and yes, Karen did insist that I apply some creative spelling to that last bit of description I used for her).

When Karen is doing her job and being generally annoying; she hammers me with questions like this:

"Are you sure that is the correct way to spell that word? Somebody is going to make fun of you if you spelled it wrong. Go check the dictionary; now!"

"Have you forgotten everything about proper English grammar!? Seriously; that last paragraph could have been written by stoned kindergarten teacher (within the Holy Biblical context an/or the late 20th Century context)!!!"

"Who would buy a book with an eccentrically weird title on it like that?!?!! It is possible to be too clever for your own good, y'know. Hey! Why did you suddenly put me in an invisible box?????"

For some reason that only makes sense to the spirit of whimsy, I also imagine Karen as being a talented martial artist-- so, throwing her down the bottomless pit with Bekki is not usually an option. Unless I go old-school cartoon on her, and trick her into jumping into it.

Now before any of you start to worry that I have fallen into the bad habit of torturing myself with my imagination; know this: You would only be half-right. Apparently enaging in mental, spiritual, and sometimes physical combat with my Muses is just a part of my natural creative process. A couple of writers whom I respect have described their writing process as being something like this:

"As I write these stories about this barbarian king, I can imagine him standing near me as I write, and he orates his legend to me."

"As I write out the story for this warrior-woman of mine, I can imagine her being in the same room with me. Letting me know when she is pleased with what I have written, and especially letting me know when she is not pleased."

I'm not going to identify these writers by name; because what they are describing is quite common among people who are very creative, and usually enjoy being alone as they create. Because it is going to get weird, but safe, usually. And, it is easier to get the job done before the deadline when you don't have to stop and explain to somebody else that you are having a mostly imaginary disagreement with an invisible Clown; because he doesn't like the punchline you gave him, before he was murdered in a mystery novel you are currently writing.

Now if you'll excuse me; I have a very important meeting with Bekki, Karen, and the legion of Chimpanzees with Type-writers, who want to help me re-write a short-story I'm plugging away at. I might have to give them all doughnuts, beer, and pizza, in order to shut them up. Or threaten them with my spontaneously random and wacky wrath. Some of them are still recovering from that karaoke contest I forced them into, with that anthropromorphisized dinosaur who does an impressive impersonation of Elvis Presley.

Excelsior!