My muse is GIZMO ... Rambo style.

Last week, I stumbled upon a Sisterhood of the Traveling Blog question posed by Deb Salisbury:

How would you personify your muse?

Well, my muse is sometimes fluffy and sweet and cooperative ...

Other times, an ugly, cantakerous, slimy beast.

What better personification than a gremlin? So, from this day forward, I dub my muse Gizmo.


Gizmo shares the same three rules for proper care and maintance as his cinematic counterparts:

1. Keep it away from bright lights.

Gizmo can be shy. He doesn't always want to come out to play. I've found he's most responsive in a dim room with only the computer's glow for company.

2. Don't get it wet.

Getting Gizmo wet (as in too many glasses of wine) causes his ideas to multiply too quickly, to wit my characters meander around aimlessly for chapters on end.

3. And don't feed it after midnight

If I make the mistake of going to bed with WIP on my brain, Gizmo responds with a nasty bout of insomnia. He doesn't care that I have a house to run and children to tote about which requires a full seven hours sleep before my seven a.m. wake up call.


But when Gizmo and I are on the same page, we get along splendidly. I guess I would even say he's my hero. A reluctant one at times, but a hero nonetheless. 

Now, to all of you, how do you personify your muse?

This is an official traveling blog question for the month of June, so if anyone decides to post about this, let me know in the comments so I can come meet your muse! Until then, have a great weekend, and see you next week. :)

Irrigating your writer's soul...

Before I get to my post for the day, I'd like to announce Friday's QueryTrackers Making Tracks interviewee: Kathy Bradey. Be sure to drop by to learn how frozen horses and lost loves played a part in her offer of representation.



Now, onto today's post. We're NOT going to be talking about bad hair days (although I could write a whole series on that. Ha!). Today's subject is bad writing days.

Ever since my MS has been out on submission, I've been having a hard time motivating my muse to work on my WIP. Instead, I'm obsessed with checking my email or twitter or bouncing around PublishersMarketplace to read about new deals getting picked up.

Bad writer ... bad, bad writer.

I wouldn't say I have a block exactly, but it's the closest I've ever come. One thing that always helps shake the cobwebs from my brain is rollerblading. But it's been too windy around here to do that lately. Also, my muse loves rain. Last year, in the span of two dreary, drippy days, I managed to whip out over 6K words, finishing one chapter and coughing up another, all while I had a part time job. Unfortunately, we haven't seen a drop in the panhandle for months.

Much like the weather, I'm having a creative drought.

All of this got me thinking about how most writers have quirky routines that help set the mood for a productive session. Some famous examples:
 
• The poet Friedrich von Schiller used to keep rotten apples under the lid of his desk. To awaken his muse, he’d open the lid and inhale deeply. I’ve tried that a few times with dry erase markers, but it’s just not the same. Kidding! Just kidding...(or am I?)

• Colette, the author of the famed novel “Gigi”, used to pick fleas from her cat before she wrote. Maybe she was afraid she’d mistake some of those parasites for misplaced punctuation on her pages?

• Voltaire, a French Enlightenment writer, used his lover's naked back as a writing desk. That could be why most of his work had a romantic slant to it. *wink wink*

• Anne Rivers Siddons' husband reports that she makes a nest of papers, like a mouse getting ready for winter, then she starts walking into walls just before she begins a writing session. That walking into walls thing … I've tried it myself. It seems to be the only way I can work up a synopsis.

• Emily Dickinson wouldn't see her dressmaker, go out of the house, or expose her handwriting while working on her projects. Her sister transcribed all of her letters. Emily would’ve loved email.

After seeing these, I realized I really don't have any quirks for getting myself into the writing mood. I'm more inclined to nurture my muse while living my everyday routine, to irrigate it until it has no choice but to write or burst.

So, what do I have in my watering can?

• Mug shots: I post pictures of my main characters on a bulletin board in my office so I can see them each time I'm in the room. Sometimes that's enough to either inspire an entire conversation between them, or a scene that I have to sit down and write immediately.

• Books and movies: Every Friday night hubbie and I watch a DVD together. I prefer movies about my current WIP’s subject (I’m a bit of a fanatic about it). While working on my geisha vampire fantasy, we saw tons of vampire flicks (with the occasional side of Phantom of the Opera and Memoirs of a Geisha). Bless my spouse and his tolerant heart. This also goes for books. I saturate myself in the subject I'm writing. This not only keeps my head in the theme, but helps me to avoid things that have already been done in similar books and movies.
 
• Music: When I first start on a project, I'll compose a playlist of songs to evoke the moods of my characters / scenes, and to heighten the atmosphere of the setting wherein I've placed my story. The songs vary from instrumental to vocal pieces. I'm not picky. It all depends upon the book. But I listen to this music, not just when I'm writing, but when I'm doing other things. Like the pictures on my bulletin board, it sometimes inspires a scene or an exchange when I'm not even at the computer.

What about you? Do you have any quirks or tricks that help wake up your muse for a writing session?

Or, like me, do you just feed your writer’s soul until it's fat with inspiration and then sit down and write in a gluttonous purge?