Rant Warning!
Over the last couple of months I have experienced a number of emotional and financial setbacks, the net result of which is that my muse is somewhere down a deep, dark hole… curled into a fetal position and gibbering sadly to herself.
Over the last couple of days I’ve managed to scribble a few pages into the notebook, but not, of course, pertinent to the story where I am blocked. I just don’t know what I’m going to do with myself right now…
Just needed to get that out. 
living that close to Portland, y lucky thats all thats wrong with y 
Anyway, tell us about your ‘muse’ 
vic
She’s rather delicate and sometimes easily spooked…
In two hours they’ll be a’tappin’ the firkin of cask-conditioned ale at ye olde Eugene City Brewery and I fully intend to be under a table there!
Arr!
then again, after a period of reflection, upon what could be construed as a somewhat flippant response to your previous post (it was in fact intended to try and lighten the effects of a possible ‘downer’), it occurred to me, that maybe, youre not blocked at all, its more than likely, youre just not ready to start writing again. Probably, in your case, whats called for is a period of serious, ‘Procrastinatory Endeavour’. 8) [size=50]As in under the table, for example! 
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Ive seen men with only one leg, ski down a slalom slope in the Alps. But! They didnt do it a week after amputation! It took time 
Is your table as comfortable as mine? 
Take care
vic
The floor was very comfortable, in a hard, tiley sort of way, and the gumwads and nose goblins were quite interesting. I’m sure there’s a secret message in there somewhere…
Flippant or not, your response did not offend, and I’ve learned a new bit o’ terminology.
My muse always comes back once I give her her space. Frequently that return is announced with an iron skillet to the back of my head, but heck, at least she came back. Once I regain consciousness She kindly reminds me that if I pick up my own messes and quit ruining everything she wouldn’t have left in the first place.
Maybe your muse just wants a break from being the muse for a while?
Word of caution, DO NOT LOOK FOR A DIFFERENT MUSE WITH OUT GETTING JACQI TO FILE THE APPROPRIATE PAPERWORK. It could turn out badly for you otherwise.
Yeah, I’d say it’s a co-dependent sort of thing…
Sounds like you’ll be fine. Even muses have to kick back, prop their feet up and relax a little bit from time to time. If she’s been a good, reliable muse in the past, she’ll be back!
Besides, I don’t do domestic relations work.
I spent ALOT of time very very blocked and here’s what I learned:
If you want to get back to your art, you have to forget about your art and look after yourself!
I realised - I’m not blocked because there’s something wrong with my ability to make music, but I’m blocked because I don’t have enough people around me who I go up to and say “I need a hug today” and they give me a hug.
I was sane, stable and functioning, but I didn’t feel I had any support.
So my response was to say “Hey my second album can wait” and proceeded to sort out what really mattered.
This was my particular issue, and it’s likely that you’ll have a different one.
This isn’t to say that your art should always wait for your life - it would be very easy to keep putting it off until your life is completely perfect and shiney - and then nothing would ever get done; but it is important to really address the non-art things that matter.
Julia Cameron (author of the Artist’s Way - a book to which I am a sworn disciple), talks of your “Inner-artist-child” - it sounds cliche I know, but it works. If you think of your inner artist, as a child who needs love, protection, and sheer play; then you suddenly can realise how much you might or might not listen to it. In getting into a dialogue with my artist-child, I found it was telling to go away and leave it alone - I found I just had to be patient, but also to bribe it with cookies.
I hope this helps at all.
Lots of Love and Fairy Lights
Sebbi
(Feel free to PM me about this if that helps)
Well, I’ve gotten some good news on the financial front, so June will be better. Also, a potential job I’d written of as a lost cause may have reappeared in a different form. The crushing weight is lifting a bit.
After a couple of months of beating my head against the wall, I may have broken a small hole in it. I’ve managed a few hundred words…
Hi. Hope by now you’ve been streaming words and words and words and see the end in sight.
Something that works for me is to go over what I have written already in an edit/reflective mode and that can often loosen the ideas inside that will open up a flow of words, either within what is being reflected over, or for continuation or even an idea for a whole other chapter. Maybe a character that was not so prominent can get a few paragraphs expansion and that can lead to something.
Still, i do spend too much time not writing. But i don’t stress too much over it anymore. Sure i’d like to have written a dozen books by now…but, I haven’t. So, what’s the point stressing …and, the times away from my book it stays in my mind and anything in my life in those times might work its way in. The book I am working on is vastly different from the book it was when i began because of the times away from it when other ideas found their way in.
Just keep going
Try Writer’s Block 911 website. if nothing else it will keep you amused for a bit.
I found this on it:
“Who is more to be pitied, a writer bound and gagged by policemen or one living in perfect freedom who has nothing more to say?” — Kurt Vonnegut
Trip
Ok
Offer your muse a back rub, some scented candles, a nice box of chocolates, and a Forty of Old English.
Then tell her a happy story as she becomes completely inebriated. Make sure to document this short story and then repost it here on the forum under the title
“Inebriated Muse Seeks Story To Unfold”
how many words?
Tell your significant other to nag you about writing enough (at least one session per day). Works for me.
42 or more but less than 1200 minus all uppercase words and words that begin with a vowel. Then add your age and then subtract by how many drinks you had, total that up then subtract by the number of times you ate that day then finalize it by adding two if your wrote it laying down, 5 words if you wrote it sitting down or subtract 250 if you are writing it standing up.
I was told there would be no math… :mrgreen:
When it’s a significant other of several decades duration, such instructions are unnecessary.
ps
True enough. Looking forward to it… 