Friday, July 2, 2010

My Muse is Refusing to Cooperate!

So I have this nasty little habit of letting my mind wander to far and too often. Usually I can rein it in, focus on one task from beginning to end while letting the other ideas fester just below the surface. But lately the creative side of my brain is refusing to cooperate. ARGH!!!! The result is three WIP’s, all past the 45,000 mark, all in desperate need of an ending.

Problem is my muse has gone in to hibernation leaving me staring at three nearly-completed YA novels. I’ve got all three of them out with beta readers, hoping . . . praying . . . banking on one of them making an insightful comment that will jolt my creative mind back into action. To make it worse, I even know how I want each of these three projects to end.  I can hear the characters talking to me though my haze of inaction. But each time I sit down and fire the computer up my mind goes blank, leaving me frustrated, over-caffeinated, and with no outlet for the dozens . . . literally dozens of plot ideas racing through my head.

One of my closest friends told me to lay off the caffeine, that it would make me calmer and thus more likely to tap into my inner muse. But let’s face it – its summer, I have three kids going in seventeen different directions, and company non-stop. Giving up my sacred coffee is sooooo not an option. Ditto goes for my chocolate-covered coffee beans.

So I am open to suggestions. What do you do when your muse refuses to cooperate?

5 comments:

  1. Oh Trisha I feel for you. This has happened to me as well and it's extremely frustrating. You know, I have found that just taking a step back and reading someone elses work for a while helps me. Either something for fun or beta testing for another writer always helps to give me the space and time I need to bring my mind back and gain some clarity on my own WIP. I drink far too much coffee as well (sipping one currently) but know that it's a habit that isn't going away easily! Good luck!!!

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  2. I watch movies. It's SO hot here to do anything other than swim. I get out a piece of paper and write down all ideas, lame or fantastic, and let my mind run. One or two of them is bound to be the greatest ending you haven't yet thought of. I did this, too! Stopped dead in the middle of one WIP and started another LOL

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  3. LOL. I wouldn't be able to lay off the coffee either. I can't offer suggestions because once I sit in front of the computer my mind magically spews out words of my stories. I still can't figure out how it happens but I'm not complaining.

    Happy 4th and Happy Writing!

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  4. Coffe is my muse! LOL Who the hell can function without coffee? If all else fails, write a steamy romance scene, sit back and catch your breath, then delete it and write something that DOESN'T have sexual tension in it. Hard eh? lol

    Alas, some of us are not as lucky to have words spew from our minds, but here's hoping the coffee pours into our mouths. ;)

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  5. I watch old sitcoms when I can't seem to get the ideas to come out. There's some great characters and dialogue from old reruns of Cheers, Frazier, Good Times, Northern Exposure... (just to name a few). Just chill out with a glass of wine and some of these old shows and soon you'll be dying to get to the computer for writing. There's some very clever, witty writing done in those classics. Sometimes relaxing your brain is the best way to get it going again.

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