My muse has been busy… Just not in the way I want her to be busy.
She’ll offer up ideas for random scenes in the middle of a manuscript and then remind me that my intro needs work. She’ll then offer up another scene from the middle of a different story entirely. Then she’ll start singing songs. It’s… tiresome.
Sample conversation between my muse and me.
Me: Hey, muse, let’s get to work.
Muse: Are you at that again? So. Tiresome.
Me: Yeah. Come on.
Muse: Here, write this.
Me: Uh, that’s from the middle of a story I haven’t started yet. Can we do a beginning first? Just a really good first chapter?
Muse: Do an outline. Oo, oo, maybe you could write this.
Me: That’s a totally different story.
Muse: Hey, don’t you judge me.
Me: No judgement. Just trying to figure out what we’re writing. So, which one are we writing?
Muse: (Singing) Her name was Lola.
Me: Our book’s about a showgirl named Lola?
Muse: No, dummy. Oh, what do you think about a romance revolving around food trucks?
Me: Funny idea, but we don’t write contemporary. There’s that whole thing about how you like to pepper my manuscripts with dead bodies. I had to take three out of my historical because they didn’t fit. Not sure death and mayhem are good for a book about food trucks.
Muse: Hm. Maybe just a severed limb?
Me: Yuck. No.
Muse: Your loss.
Me: So… What are we doing?
Muse: Writing about how I like Barry Manilow. Oh, what do you think about cranberry-orange chutney?
Me: Are we writing about it?
Muse: No silly. We’re making it.
I go ahead and make the cranberry-orange chutney. It’s delightful.
Me: I made the chutney. Now let’s get to work.
Muse: Oh, Mandy!
Me: I think I’ll take a nap.
So tell me, how do you control an unruly muse?
There's a Bee in my Bodice 