Nature of the Muse

I have finished the 'official' rewrite of the Book. I've actually had the courage to let a few people read it. This is particularly noteworthy as I have a clear awareness that the minute you let someone see your creative activities you are putting yourself in the 'wanting approval', ego dominating state - something that I recognized recently is really not healthy for my spiritual development.

On the other hand despite all that, I'm merrily on to writing another book. Actually it is a sequel to the first one. And I have created an outline for a third book that would be the prequel. One of the nice things about working in the fantasy genre is that you can make up your own rules for the way your world works and its history. Saves a lot of drudgery researching things to be accurate and so fits my basically lazy nature. In addition to the two books that I'm actually doing work on, I have a number of ideas for additional books that would be a natural outflow from the core story as well.

What is of particular interest to me is Where The Heck Is All This Coming From? It is true that I was pretty imaginative as a young person really all the way through being a young adult. But as the needs and drama of life took hold and the ego spider web of the career manifested, I can't say I spent any time thinking imaginatively nor did I even once consider writing for pleasure at least until I started to write this blog.

Now this stuff is coming out of me like a torrent. When I say stuff I'm talking about character personalities, development of new characters, story lines, character emotional details and interactions, fantasy world science logic, social and politico-economic conventions for the fantasy world, etc. I'm not really working at this. It isn't as if I'm sitting down with this chart in front of me and pondering the how and why something will work in the story. No it just comes. This is especially true when I'm doing my hiking work outs. I'll start out focusing on breathing and mantra repetition (my hikes are pretty strenuous - at least to my aged body) and usually within a very short period of time something related to the world (the fantasy world that is) will start popping into my head. A lot of times it will be detailed dialog and action between various characters. Sometimes it will be new character coming forth like Athena from the head of Zeus which just happened yesterday. It just comes forth. I will usually write down some notes about it when I get back home as it is all coming out much faster than I can write it. And as this is for enjoyment, I don't want write everything up too soon. That would kill the fun of writing it.

It's all very mysterious

(BTW - I am extremely disappointed that NONE of you showed up at the OPM this morning for the great Bastille Day storming. It was pretty embarrassing to be out there all by myself with my pitchfork and torch. You wouldn't believe the looks people were giving me.)