This Just In!

Who knows what motivates our muses? Certainly not I. If I could write a tell-all on the care and feeding of inspiration that would fit everyone's creative streak, I'd go down in history for my contributions to humankind. I won't write such a book. I don't even comprehend what my own muses are up to.

This past month is a case in point. Here I am, going along about my regular business, working full-time at the day job, trying to keep up with a dozen routine commitments (you know the kind: exercise, learn Italian, study Renaissance Florence for a book I plan to write in the distant future, live) and struggling to make even a moment for writing.

I make the moment, sit down to write and Voila! A blank page -- one that stays blank -- or even worse, one I fill with drivel, erase, and try once more, dribbling drivel again. Blah. Nada. I have one or two chapters on several pieces that are going nowhere, and doing it slowly./p>

Then bam! Out of the blue comes a story and just like that, I'm off and sailing: still working full-time, still exercising, learning Italian, etc., and WRITING, more than 60 pages in less than a week. And it's good! Yeah, okay, I know I can't be the only judge of that, but according to Sondra Perl's "felt sense" (thank you, literary theorists!), it's good. It was born in my head to be good, and thus it is.

This happened to me once before. I had written the first book in my Rainbow Rock Series and was starting work on the second, just thinking to myself about the characters and how the plot might develop when bam! The story popped out of my head like Athena from the brow of Zeus. AT THE RAINBOW'S END was written, edited, and sent off to my publisher in ten days -- and they loved it! They printed it without changing a word, and it is still among my more successful books.

Can lightning strike twice? I'm sure hoping so. Can I rope in my muses and get them to work like this all the time? Not a chance! But I do intend to keep trying.