Ever since receiving my agent's wise feedback on my MG mystery, I've felt urgency to get the book revised (ok, rewritten) and back to her. Then a bucketful of clichés dumped on our household. All hell broke loose, sh@tstorm, life went sideways.

For days I stared at my manuscript. I wrote one sentence, deleted two. At the end of my writing time (when baby was expected to wake) I'd pop over to another manuscript and work hard for half an hour in hopes that would placate the writing gods for the day. 

Then, about two weeks into the insanity, it hit me. I was angry. Furious. The injustice of the situation, the lies that proliferated, the abuse of power and mindless expression of absolute control, well, it all created a rage that roiled in my gut night and day. Whether conscious or unconscious of it, I simply couldn't get into the happy, zany, slightly creepy place I needed to be in to write the MG novel. I could, however, easily get into the angsty poetic place required for the other manuscript.

So in less than I month I hacked, slashed, rewrote, re-envisioned a novel that had languished seemingly forever. I sent it to Victoria last Friday.

Where's My Muse?

I've spent many years questioning the existence of a Muse. While I still don't believe any writer must wait for mystical inspiration, there is an element of mystery. Of readiness. Of finding a way to match the work to what is being felt. Maybe writer's block is less a block of creativity and more being in the wrong place and space for a certain project. Maybe?

Although now that I write this, I realize I need to be careful, else the entity that caused such distress claim the IP to my book! Since, clearly, they were such a direct, ahem, inspiration.