Having a Muse that is on the verge of a mental break down is not a good thing. I have discovered that you cannot allow her to just go on a research binge and then expect to not let her to use at least some of what she found. She will not only pout, cry, and mentally scream at the top of her lungs she will make your life a living hell. Oh you think I am kidding don’t you? I am not.

Muses are beautiful creatures. They come in all forms. They are responsible for music, poetry, art, all forms of literature, (The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) They record our lives in ways that only we see later. They can make it as beautiful or as monstrous as they want to. Can you imagine what it would have been like to have a Muse the was pissed with men running around in Shakespeare’s head when he wrote Romeo and Juliet? Oh yeah, you got it, not a pretty sight huh? Juliet would have killed half of the men before they found a way to off her before the play was a quarter of the way written.

What about Twilight… here is a perfect example. Mrs. Myers has written one of  the most romantic series of books in our day and age. ( Yes, I am one of those people. My Muse happens to be as well, so lets not go there.) How would it have turned out if she had a Muse that was not so romantically inclined? Let’s say for argument’s sake that her Muse had a serious case of the repeating the same old thing blues. Which means that Edward can’t come out except at night, he can’t be touched by wood or crosses and lives on human blood. Bella would not have fallen for him now would she? Yes, she would be drawn to him, aren’t we always drawn to them? Jacob would be a werewolf, not a shape shifter from a long line of Proud Native Warriors, and he would change at the full moon looking to kill Bella as well. Where would all the beauty and love in this story be? Where would our Sexy beast of a Wolf be who we all rooted for in New Moon, and even a bit in  Eclipse? Where would our Sparkling Handsome Vampire Hero be, the one that we all want for our own, forever?  Thank God and all the Muses that are in charge of Twilight that she has the one that she does.

Mine will make my writing interesting if not difficult. I have been working diligently on a new story. One that I hope to one day turn into a series of books; with any luck and if I can keep my Muse from committing suicide. Hers and mine. Since day one of this new project I have had to deal with her wanting to add crazy things into the mix… zombies, really, I am serious. I have been working out how get a group of zombies into a book about magical love. Don’t see it happening. But you can’t tell  her that.  Then there are the other odd things, like going back in time. Okay, that might work, but I still have to work out how to get it work into the story line, and she wants it all RIGHT NOW. She is very much like a two-year old with a new toy who has just been told,

“You have to share with the rest of the children.”

Just not happening. She is selfish. More days than I care to count. Now her big thing is lets just kill  a bunch of people off. The biggest thing with that is, the people she wants me to kill off so badly are critically to the story. Main characters. You just don’t do that, not seven chapters into the story. I am thinking about writing a Muse into the story so that I can write a gory murder scene… hers.

Sorry sidetracked there. But I have found a compromise for us. I can kill off someone. It is a magical story. One that I am in charge of, and after all, in the magical world of writing and make-believe we can do almost anything. So, tomorrow when we go to work on Chapter Seven, I get to make my Muse happy and commit a mortal sin in the writing world… I am killing my main character.

Compromise is a wonderful thing and my Muse is dancing now.

Dancing Muses are a Beautiful thing.

No Rest for the Wicked,

Mindi and Her Muse.

That is when it hits me, the most brilliant idea I have had to date. Now mind you, I am sure that all of the cold medication might have made my judgement a bit off, but to me, it was the most amazing plan I have come up with. It just could not fail. I was taught that to be a writer, a really good writer, you must at least have some good working knowledge of your subject. I could be wrong here, but that is what ALL of my English teachers told me. (Now, I do hope that at some point someone, somewhere will prove that theory wrong so that I can go back and laughingly tell them so. I loved the subject just not the teachers, a few of them anyway.) Sorry back to my story here.

With this thought in mind I set about to make my Muse so confused and overwhelmed that she would either completely give up on me or at least see that I know something about my own creativity. Both of which would have been fine with me, but she once again took this simple task of research out of my hands. I am not sure how she does what she does, but I can assure you that in the space of two weeks she has managed to fill two notebooks and seventy-five pages on my computer with absolutely nothing I will ever use.

I can not imagine that I will ever need to know that lifespan of a fly for anything that I write, I write romance, with a lovely twist of the supernatural to make my life more interesting. Can you just see someone like J.K. Rowling describing how “Harry Potter” goes to kill his mortal enemy and a fly becomes his distraction? Or better yet how about Edward Cullen goes in to kiss Bella Swan and a deadly strain of swine flu interrupts their romantic moment? Come on!!! I can’t use a single thing she researched. I even tried to direct her toward the topics I would have loved to delve into, places that I want to write about.

Paris, Ireland, New Orleans,… she gives me the CDC, and Homeland Security. Really, is she trying to get me killed? The last thing I need is the Government thinking I am out to start something. All I want to do is write something romantic and sappy. She wants me to write something that has half the country dying and the other half turning into killer zombies. Seriously??? I just wanted to drink my whole bottle of NyQuil and hope for a quick death by the time I realized what she had done to me. But revenge is sweet.

By the end of the two weeks, I was still working on keeping my lungs securely in my chest but my Muse was basically in a research coma. She had frantically been going through everything she could find that she thought I could use, and I was going along in a daze. I was letting her overload herself without even trying.

So for the last week of MUSELESSNESS I have been steadily writing without the steady interruptions of…

“You know that is so not going to work.”

“They really should be star-crossed lovers for all time, not just for the moment.”

“I am so much better at this with Ghirardelli’s Chocolate and a glass of wine.”

Wait, that last one we sort of agree on, so that isn’t so bad.

So, with all this, I am now back and hopefully will be writing more wonderful news of how she has once again taken over my world and I will gladly let her. Because to be honest, I love her to pieces. After all, she is MY MUSE.

No Rest For Wicked, or those with the Flu,

Mindi and her Muse.

The best laid plans of … yeah you get the picture. Per as usual she wins. Not only does she get creative control of my writing skills now, but it would seem she now has taken over my other creative outlets as well.    Surprised? I am actually. I don’t guess I should be. She has this amazing ability that I have yet to grasp to weasel  her way into every aspect of my life without me realizing it. So not happy about this. I am really starting to hate this great and wonderful creature… OMG!!! see what I mean… there she is.

Present and accounted for.

Oh joy…

Did you honestly think that I was going to let you write a whole blog about ME and not have my say as well? Of course not, so here I am to grace the flow with my beauty and make this otherwise boring piece of drivel worth reading. I am sure that anyone that has actually read this has either fallen asleep midway through it or started to wonder if you needed to be put on some serious medication.

I have wondered that myself.

What was that, dear? Now where was I? Of course, making this worth the read. Now if she writes like she normally does without my glorious influence, there are an abundance of these … and the ever-present emoticons        Shall I insert a dramatic sigh here for effect? Very well, I will do just that,   *SIGH*   I will personally see if I can change some of this for you, my dear readers. I can only imagine that it must be the least enjoyable of reading experiences you have had in recent memories. I must apologize for her. She does try, but without my constant guidance it would seem that she really does not have very much talent in this area. I am hoping that in time and with much work she will truly be a mediocre writer, although she does have these illusions of actually being an author at some point.

Hey, I am right here, you know. I am so sorry for this.

I gather that you have been inundated with flowery proses that make little or  no sense with the topic she originally started with. I am sure that she has been telling you that she has these gorgeous chapters written to go with an AMAZING prologue; one that I must admit here truthful is quite good, but it does need my expert tweaking and a few of my delicate changes to make it absolutely perfect. Because after all, that is what I do, as a Muse, create perfection of the works buried deep with the person we have grown on.

May I ask what you are laughing so heartily about?

Nothing, please continue. I am certainly gaining some great insight as to how you help me. ( it is that whole grown on that gets me, like mold.)

As I was saying, before this mere human interrupted our conversation, I am going to help with this newest endeavor that she has now decided will help her creatively. I do agree that she needs as much help as she can get in the creative areas of her life. The poor thing is just so lacking is those areas. I do feel sorry for her. To be so under inspired by the world, to not have the creativity that comes naturally to other humans is such a sad thing, so sad indeed. But not to worry, I am here now and I promise, these mundane and I am sure horribly lacking creative writings will now be much more worth reading.

Are you done now? Good, now go away. Thank you.

I assume that she is gone now. Oh for the love all that is Holy… she is an unholy terror that is going to be the death of me. Is it possible to be losing your mind to yourself? Seriously? I think I am going crazy. I know that she is not real, but come on, she just took over my blog while I watched. I know you just saw that, right? She is crazy, or I am… I can’t keep this straight. Either way, she is now going to be a part of our conversations full-time. >_<\\   Oh such fun for us. Maybe I should just end it all right now… Death by Chocolate… Yep, that’s the ticket.

No Rest For the Wicked,

Mindi and her… Muse

In my house, I don’t get to run a lot of things… other than my computer and the television in the bedroom. My husband has control of the remotes in the living room and the heat/cooling. Thus, I am not the one in control. It is makes for one very cranky person around here; namely, ME. I am an extremely cold natured person, not cold as in cold-hearted, just cold all the time, it can be 70 degrees outside and I am in a set of fleece jammies and looking for hot chocolate. I don’t do COLD. It would not do for me to live anywhere other than the South, and trust me when I tell you this, even we get cold here. Sorry, lost my train of thought here… where was I going with this? Oh yeah…

This morning I woke up to a whopping 23 degrees outside… for those that don’t think so, that is freaking cold. I was up before everyone, therefore to my way of thinking I should have total control of the heat. Right? Right. So, I set the heat in the bedroom, which by the way is MY domain, and the heat in the living room to about a comfortable 80 degrees. Hey, you have to get the chill out of the air, and besides the penguins were roosting on the couch along with the Wonder Horse,( which I will explain some other time. ) I was just getting the coffee made when the morning noises started.

You may ask what are morning noises, but we all know what they are… if you are married you definitely do, they are like night noises, only some can be just as bad. Husbands love them and they enjoy putting their wives heads under the comforters just for fun when they are making them. Yes, you get the picture now I see. Yes, I have ONE of THOSE husbands, the lovely down to Earth kind you wonder daily why you married but then they do something sweet and you remember for just the briefest moment. I wanted to groan and grumble about it, but I kept my cool, so to speak, I had a plan, remember? Nice, toasty living area, along with my toes, that was my plan.

Well, it sort of worked. He, the grumpy man who I love more than life it’s self, ( I do question my sanity daily ) came stumbling into the living room doing the morning stretch and reach. We all know what that is too, I hope. Because if I have to explain it could get a bit embarrassing. Oh my… Alright, the morning stretch is simple, you just stretch but the reach is just a number of awkward attempts at reaching parts of your body that you no longer are able to reach anymore… you know, like your back, or other such areas… but it is the private scratching that gets on my ever-loving-last-nerve, PLEASE JUST GO TO THE BATHROOM ALREADY>>>> :/ you have know idea how annoying that is for wives.

Anyway, as I was saying, it almost worked. The grumpy man came up front, doing his morning dance. That sounds better. He took his cup of Joe and smiled lovingly at me, kissed me on the top of my head. Told me he loved me and went to watch the morning news. I had done it. I had actually gotten away with it. I had gotten a SNEAK ATTACK in. I had worked my own magic and managed to get the heat set the way I wanted it. It was a nice toasty temperature for me, and no one was the wiser… for the time being. YAY!!! H a P p Y   D a N c E !!!!

That is when it hit me. I knew that I could do the same thing with her. I know what you are thinking. No you can’t, she is part of you. You can’t fool her, she is you. Oh yes I can. It is just a matter of not letting her find out until I have already done it. Just like this morning. By the time my hubby found out that the heat was turned up, it was nice and toasty and I was happy about they way my day had started. She will never find out until it is already done and over with… of course there is always the draw back of her wanting to change it but hey, we can always deal with that when we get there. In the mean time… it is late night writing or early morning writing, when she is too tired to deal with me. She can play with my dreams, but I have more control when I am awake… HaHa… More H a P p Y D a N c E!!!

Well, guess what? I thought we had come to an agreement on the Prologue. It is beautiful. Perfect. Then my alarm clock went off. Yep, it sure did. Let me explain. If that is possible.

I woke this morning to find that over night the Fairies had graced us with a dusting of white. It is just that, just a minor dusting, nothing to write home to Mom about, but still enough to get my Muse all excited. The morning sun glinting off the sugary powder gave way to a whole new direction for the Prologue. Her creative wheels began turning and I wanted to both scream and dance with frustrated excitement. She assures me that the whole thing does not need to be rewritten, just a tweak here and there, a minor change in season, a move of the timeline,she whispers in the deep recesses of my mind. I don’t think she really understands how this works.

I can’t justify the creatures in the story being there during this Season, even if they are Magical. It just can’t be done. Oh, no. There are somethings that you have to adhere to, even in the imaginary world. She believes that if you can clearly see it then you can clearly and plainly write it out. But that does not make it believable to the reader. No amount of argument makes her understand. She is one determined Muse.

So my day has begun.  To appease my artistic side, my Muse, the part of my soul that must be unleash or parish, I will once again sit down and rewrite my perfect work. Why, you ask? Because, Mother Nature decided that she would send her Fairies to decorate our world with a beautiful dusting of powdered sugar, touching our lives with a veil of feathery glistening diamonds. The gorgeous sight that I woke to and smiled at for a brief moment has now become my reason for wanting to hunt down Mother Nature and kick her in the shins.Then my alarm clock went off… I know.

No Rest For The Wicked,

Mindi and her Very Happy Muse