To Muse or not to Muse?

As writers, we will all experience times when our creative energies seem to leave us; we spend our mornings staring at blank pages, or worse still, for months nothing seems to inspire us to commit our thoughts to the page. At such times we are left believing that we are without the Muse. But, do we need the muse to write well or to even write at all? 

For a number of months this year, I seemed to be without inspiration to write. I told my writer and author friends about it and they made various suggestions from taking a course, walking in the the country, going on holiday or even falling in love. As I struggled with my seeming barrenness, I came across a poem in a notebook that challenged me to reconsider my dependence on the Muse. I had written it in a ten minute slot at a summer school at Millers Yard, an exciting Alternative Living Centre in the city of York. Having decided to use the Creative Writing class as the centre for my piece, I approached the event with trepidation....what if I couldn't write on tap? I thought to myself. Lizzie Linklater the instructor was inspiring and encouraging as she hurled people into the art of creative writing with nothing more than a brief introduction and an "Okay, you have ten minutes to write a story on 'My Memory of London'. Amazingly, I did not stare at the paper for a moment! Off I went and in ten minutes had my story written...of course, it was a first draft, but a story nonetheless.

That Saturday afternoon, I learned that if the Muse was not around, I should not wait for inspiration, but rather, create inspiration for myself. Now I actively look for ideas in the exciting and different, and yes, even the ordinary and mundane that goes on around me every day.

I have come to see for me at least, that the Muse is as much about me throwing excuses to the wind and beginning to engage with whatever is to hand.

Poetry and Prose

To keep poetry and prose seperate, I have opened a new blog called The Bridge where you can follow poetry and post your own comments and poems at http://www.poetrybridges.blogspot.com. I look forward to reading your posts.

Whether we write for personal development, pleasure or profit, we all need a little encouragement from time to time. The life of a writer can be an isolated and lonely one...it is hard to complete a piece of work if we are surrounded by others. However, today's writer has advantages of those who wrote during the days of typewriters, and that is 'portability'. With the advent of notebooks, you can now choose to take your work to more sociable venues such as coffee shops, libraries, arts centres, pubs (as long as you don't imbibe too much of the muse) and, even the public park if you have a dongle. I take my notebook out and about when I have writing administration tasks to perform; by doing this, I have killed the idea that writing is a lonely art-form.

Nowadays there is another effective way to reduce the effects of writer's isolation...join an online writing community that provides both social connection and useful feedback in a safe environment...and what I mean by that is, no one will steal your creation. If you are needing some inspiration and support, visit http://www.writing.com/.

I look forward to seeing you there.

Poets and Garrets

What we all know about poetry is, you can't make a living at it...well, at least that is, not the majority of us. What I also know about poetry is, where I come from, many lived in garrets and near starved to death...one whom I knew, did! What is it about a poet that compels him or her to compose in spite of the lack of financial reward? Have they all uttered the Jesuit self denying prayer "teach me, to give and not to count the cost...?" Enough has been written about it and it can add to our understanding of why we do what we do, but don't wallow too long...pick up your voice, engage your mind and let the words flow out! Now, to take you from the Garret to the halls of academia, where you can rub shoulders with the future laureates and hob knob with professors, here is a free course at Yale University that will lead you through world of Modern Poetry at your pace...no examination to take: http://oyc.yale.edu/english/modern-poetry/. I hope it excites you as much as it did me.

North East In Eden

North East in Eden

At the border where North meets West and East,
Hillsides slide into northern flatlands…
Exhaling ravishment.
Seduced with levity,
I forget darker scenes;
Ulster’s hillsides,
Sucking life to premature death...
Black despair
Tearing reason’s staff,
From solid ground.

A twisted mind,
Tortured by deaths...
Hate’s rhetoric,
The stench of corrupting goodness
Rising from rivers of unworthy termination...
Now seeks the meandering streams of memory;
Sticklebacks skimming in idle becks,
Pond Skaters on quiet pools,
Swallows darting -
Chirruping cheerful summers,
Curlews crying a plaintiff strain...Stay;
Larks raising me to past joys,
Butterflies drawing me down their fluttering path,
Damselfly’s hovering
Over my safe earth
My Tranquil lake…
Where Reed Mace whispers peace.


Opened by desiccating sun,
Crazed earth
Echoes my shattered mind,
Cracked by hate, bigotry, intolerance
The ranting of the right...
Hostility ringing round half-forgotten Ulster hills.
Now, surrounded by the scented air
And ripening Barley fumes,
Hogwort raises her mature head,
Acknowledging the fertile sun
Setting on her bed of hungry children
In eternal rays,
Rising poppies wave at me
Without addictive platitudes
That promise vapid dreams of paradise
And forever.

Northward, dark woodland
Whispers serenity...
Her dark, garlic-scented sweetness
Drawing death’s bitter cud...
Purging it.
I had left for hillocks of the dead...
Where those who breathed tomorrow
Lie in unquiet rest...
Exterminated innocence.
From landscapes of mourning,
She called me home.

Cypress - tall and motionless,
Breathe the perfumed exhalations…
Moon rising behind
Streaks the Barley heads with mellow glow.
Peace here.
Green fields without the staining of lost life…
Pure rivers
Not red
Like the raging torrents of the dead.
Mind flees to boyhood earth...
Where eternal orbs illuminate the
Cooling Towers at Selby...
I am returned to Eden,
Inhaling her tomorrows.


　
© David McLoughlin August 2010

Art or Frustration?

I have a good friend, (let's call him Jim) who admitted to me last week, that he was furious that he hadn't been offered even a free copy of an anthology in which his work had recently appeared. "I redrafted that poem over 30 times" he complained and his frustration was obvious. So, is writing easy for the experts and harder for the rest of us? Well, take a look at these quotes from famous authors sent to me by my friend David Kelly:


“First of all, if you want to write, write. And second, don’t do it. It’s the loneliest, most depressing work you can do.” Walker Percy

“Writing is easy; all you do is sit staring at a blank sheet of paper until the drops of blood form on your forehead.” Gene Fowler

“Writing is so difficult that I often feel that writers, having had their hell on earth, will escape all punishment hereafter.” Jessamyn West

“There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” Red Smith

“It should surprise no one that the life of the writer – such as it is – is colorless to the point of sensory deprivation. Many writers do little else but sit in small rooms recalling the real world. This explains why so many books describe the author’s childhood. A writer’s childhood may well have been the occasion of his only firsthand experience.” Annie Dillard

“In general, very little happens to a writer. Now do you understand why we put so much emphasis on artificial reality? Our actual reality is insufferably dull. A Federal Express delivery is far and away the most dramatic event in my day.” Philip Yancey

“I turn sentences around. That’s my life. I write a sentence and I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning.” Philip Roth

“Every writer I know has trouble writing.” Joseph Heller

“The first draft of anything is [poop].” Ernest Hemingway

“Writing is just having a sheet of paper, a pen and not a shadow of an idea of what you’re going to say.” Francoise Sagan

“Writing is no trouble: you just jot down ideas as they occur to you. The jotting is simplicity itself – it is the occurring which is difficult.” Stephen Leacock

“Writing is a form of therapy. Sometimes I wonder how all those who do not write, compose or paint can manage to escape the madness, the melancholia, the panic fear which is inherent in the human situation.” Graham Greene

“The secret of good writing is to say an old thing a new way or to say a new thing an old way.” Richard Harding Davis 

Thanks to Al Hsu of The Urban Christian blog for these quotes.

Watch out for the new Poems page coming soon and be ready to post your creations.

Welcome

Hi, and welcome to Reflective Writer. On these pages I will be sharing my own writing and that of other's who are inspired to share their reflections and creativity with others; also, I will be providing insights to aspiring writers, in the hope that this will help them on their way to sharing their creations with a wider readership.

Each month I will be adding a new poem, so I invite you to submit your verse for consideration. Authors will retain full possession of copyright.

I encourage you to share your postings and to become involved in getting your writing out into the public domain.