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Community, Inspiration and The Muse

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A self-made dock of a summer cottage at a lake...
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Today is the first official day of summer, an appropriate day to trade hard cover tomes of business and industry for deliciously just for fun paperbacks.  This post is lovingly for all my writer friends who inspire and challenge me in every season. Grab your flip flops and come build sand castles with me for awhile.

Writers block had spread like some weird epidemic of creative flu. Suddenly pens were silenced and blogs languished untouched for days and weeks at a time. Gripped in the throes of my own angst I told myself we had matured, had outgrown the incessant need to publish and be read but deep down I wondered if I had infected the parasite into the space I had inhabited. The community that had fed my creative soul had vanished around me.

My writing life was as barren as the stark naked trees with icicles dripping from their limbs. My body felt heavy with ideas but I was unable to do more than store them away for future use. It was a long and desolate winter with an occasional breakthrough of creativity like the sun which hid for months and then shone brilliantly high in the sky reminding you that it was there behind the thick blanket of clouds, before it disappeared again.

And then as magically as the virus had struck there was a fresh bloom of posts dripping with intensity and raw emotions.  The virus had stripped away the self doubt and left the bare and naked souls of the writer. Pens were no longer stilled and blogs were humming with the low thrum of activity like tourists descending upon a beach town for the season. The townies quietly blended into the background while the tourists explored with wide eyed curiosity. The community was abuzz with their chatter and questions about the local culture.  The locals pretended not to care but our hopes were renewed. Could we recreate the magic of that first summer, would word spread beyond the borders of our small town? When the summer sun set would the tourists return to the fast paced motion of their lives and tuck away the visit to the small blogging village as a quaint little side trip?

Fueled by the visitors and the locals emerging from self-hibernation I allowed myself once again to be swept away on the waves of their creativity. I drank it in like one who had wandered in the desert unable to command the rocks to yield a droplet of life giving water.  I drank until bloated fearful of letting a single drop escape me, inhaling and tasting the sweet nectar that suddenly was in abundance everywhere. But I did not return to my own shop, eating in secret fearful of being discovered and called out for my gluttony of the precious morsels that were plentiful in the space I had come to love. Tucked away in my corner I filled my baskets with the manna of inspiration, piling the storehouses for the inevitable winter.

When the doors of neighboring shops closed for the night I sat on their doorsteps inhaling the aroma of the day and the soft sounds of gentle laugher mixed with the gentle waves floating upward on the iridescent night sky. I had been here before and knew how quickly the lusty headiness of muse could evaporate. If held too tightly I would crush her fragile beauty so I cupped her gently accepting that she could and would fly off again when she chose. Muse is fragile but surprisingly strong in her will to come and go as it pleases. Even now as I try to distill her beauty into words I know that it may elude me causing my words to spin dizzily like the ranting of a woman gone mad. So I simply sit quietly enjoying the beauty of muse and her ability to come to each of us in her form and on her own terms. Together we, this community of writers who dare to hit the publish button, reflect a tapestry of shapes, sounds and colors more beautiful than any that would have been created by just one. I lean back against the sand thankful for this moment for I know that muse is fickle and fleeting and may soon simply dip beneath the moonlit sky once again out of my reach.

Before you leave the village be sure to check out a few neighboring shops:

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Comments

  2. Karen,

    Down here in Melbourne, winter has not long set in. So people down here thought I was somewhat crazy for trying a scuba diving course over the last two weekends. To an extent, they were right. In spite of protection from the thickest possible wetsuits, gloves, hoods and boots, the water was pretty darn cold. Nevertheless, it was fun, adventurous and a step outside of my comfort zone.

    (Unfortunately, I didn’t pass. I completed two pool dives OK and two dives off the shore in Port Phillip Bay pretty well, but was not able to complete the two ‘ocean dives’ needed to get my Open Water licence. I might try again in the next couple of weeks – I haven’t decided yet)

    But after every winter comes spring and then summer, when the full beauty of the world comes alive, and inspiration starts flowing more naturally. And it’s not just physical – we all go though different ‘seasons’ of our lives emotionally as well (though of course these don’t necessarily coincide with the physical seasons).

    For me, when I’m going through ‘winters’ in my life, I like to remember Bette Midler’s famous words;

    “Just remember in the winter
    far beneath the bitter snows
    lies the seed
    that with the sun’s love
    in the spring
    becomes the rose.”
    .-= Andrew Heaton´s last blog ..Chinese worker suicides- Don’t dump Foxconn yet =-.

  5. Hi Karen – Your description made me feel like I was in a real life village. I don’t know about a muse but I’ve been miserable all winter and the arrival of summer has actually made me want to write.

  6. Oooo, Karen, that picture above just makes me want to go barefoot waterskiing… instead of writing!

    Summer has always been a slow time for me and a time of reflecting– my writing flows like the seasons– stronger in winter and much slower in the summer.

    Reading your blog has made me realize how much I miss my favorite writers and have to get back into reading again– it fills up my soul!
    .-= Karen Putz´s last blog ..Breathe =-.

  7. You are so sweet, Karen.

    I’ve never figured out what writers mean when they talk about their muse. I just write. 🙂 Sometimes it’s better than others, but I can always come up with something.

    But, of course, what I do best is help other writers who are more talented storytellers than I am tell their stories in a more coherent and readable way.
    .-= Lillie Ammann´s last blog ..Memories of My Father =-.

  8. Lillie dear you are one who has shown me what is possible. Your creativity and passion for writing evident in all that you do. I count on your posts in my inbox to ground me, inspire me and remind me that maybe one day I could be like you!
    .-= Karen Swim´s last blog ..Community, Inspiration and The Muse =-.

  10. Lol! Everything about N’awlins inspires creativity, the city definitely has soul in everything from the food to the amazing artists that hail from the region, I am so glad that some have settled in other parts to spread the magic around. 🙂

  11. LALALALA… oh you so don’t want me to sing.. LOL. I used to go to this fudge making place in the Quarter near the Moon Walk, river boat caliopes playing , breeze in the trees.. people strolling…nice… just a brief break from the studio.. nice escape and a coming back to self…ahhh..:)
    Summer is a such a fun thing.. the event and the state of mind… oh and you all DO know you have to pass Euterpe, Melpomene, Calliope, Clio, Terpschicore, Erato Streets to get down to the Quarter from the Garden District.. Uh huh.. for real. Pass through the muses and back on a streetcar….:)) 😀
    .-= Janice Cartier´s last blog ..Kisses =-.

  12. Hi Rick! Well as usual you are extremely gracious in your comments and my heart just filled with extra joy. Thank you for that lovely compliment and your beautiful words. While you may not do this for a living Rick, your gift is apparent. You feel deeply and your writing is rich with intellect and emotion. I enjoy all that you write whether it is a 140 character message or a post. When the muse strikes you, I for one am always happy to read.

  13. Oh Joanna, this is one of the many reasons I love you “maybe we’ere a bit like a kind of (insane) choir…taking it in turns to sing.” Yes!! This is definitely my kind of choir 🙂

  14. I know we get frustrated with it, but isn’t it just so wonderful that the muse remains so persistently elusive ? 🙂

    I love the way you have put it here:

    “…muse is fickle and fleeting and may soon simply dip beneath the moonlit sky once again out of my reach…”

    PS Maybe we’re a bit like a kind of (insane) choir… taking it in turns to sing… 😉

  16. Your last paragraph, Karen, reminds me of Liz Gilbert’s TED talk (this is the highest of compliments, by the way–her TED talk is magical
    http://www.ted.com/talks/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html ) and puts me in the mood to scribble. Well, type.

    It is a sometimes-challenging element of the writer’s life, the adjustment to the ebb and flow of inspiration. I am blessed to do all of my writing for my own amusement, so the inspiration part is not all that much trouble for me. If I am not driven to put word to screen, I simply don’t, and I don’t for as long as I remain unmotivated.

    On the other hand, I know I would relish the opportunity to face deadline pressure for more than just the 30-day blog challenge I am more than halfway through right now. The checks would be fun, too.

    Thanks for a wonderfully written, delightfully evocative message, Karen!
    .-= Rick Hamrick´s last blog ..Whimsy, woo-woo, and wow =-.

  17. Ahhh.. this is a refreshing as a fall back into a welcoming clear pool.. makes me want to drift a bit and sample.. which I will do at leisure. Just scrumptious and beyond wonderful to be included in the muse pool… Now please explain why I suddenly have a craving for hand made fudge…LOL…xo Can’t wait to dive in. 🙂
    .-= Janice Cartier´s last blog ..Kisses =-.

  19. Meryl, I totally get that – the difference between the silences – they are not all the same. The silence that inspires work is energizing, which differs from the silence of turning off but still needing to tune in the other senses. I wish I had the luxury of simply working only when the muse struck and the conditions were conducive to creating but I’m not there….yet. 🙂
    .-= Karen Swim´s last blog ..Community, Inspiration and The Muse =-.

  21. It’s been harder to work this summer simply because at least one kid is almost always home. Though I have a rule for no TV downstairs, I can still sense their movement and presence. I may have the deaf advantage, but turning off my cochlear implant silence is different from the silence I experience while it’s on.
    .-= Meryl K Evans´s last blog ..Links: Father’s Day 2010 Edition =-.

  24. Yeah, it’s something like that. 😉

    Seems the “sleepy muse virus” has been makin’ his/her/its rounds lately, hasn’t it, Karen? Ah well; Summer is probably the best time to sit back, relax and contemplate life, the universe, and everything for a spell.

    A tip o’ the topper to ya though! And not to worry; Summer gives way to harvest season sooner or later!
    .-= Robert Hruzek´s last blog ..OPEN… OPEN… OPEN… =-.

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