Vid

[jacquelineb]

Not sure if I can 'actually' believe it, but it is an interesting way of thinking of the creative 'spirit.'

Comments

[threewalls]

This response to this woman's talk reminded me of comments I didn't make when you first linked it: http://yuki-onna.livejournal.com/505990.html?format=light

Knowing the book this woman wrote that is her fantastic success, that it is a memoir that involved travelling the world and finding enlightenment in foreign/third world countries and then taking her enlightenment home with her to the US, I'm skeptical of her 'I am an vessel for a muse' line of argument. I'm skeptical that she's looking to avoid fearing for the next book as much as she's looking to avoid responsibility for the last one.

Writing is work. Not only is it work, it's the writer's work and the writer's responsibility, not that of some etherial being and I'm suspicious of people that genuinely (as opposed to jokingly-- I know all the men and women in my head aren't real) espouse that.

But also: audience reaction to your work does not have a direct relationship with the writer's experience of writing the book and their own opinion of the 'goodness' of the work. I'm pretty sure more people comment on my work because of any number of factors that are not my prose: my reputation, my metadata content, the time they have on their hands, the community I posted it to all.

Is she suggesting a 'muse' has control over her readers' lives and experiences to make them buy her books? Really?

[jacquelineb]

For me, I took more from the speech the idea of leavening the pressure that writers/artists put on themselves. I took more from the Tom Waits anecdote than the poet one, that is, the idea of not beating oneself up if the 'muse' isn't 'flowing' as best as it could on certain days, or indeed being in the wrong place when it strikes. I think particularly when it is easy to tie one's self-worth into work (I do this quite a bit at least, perhaps you do this less) that the use of the 'muse' as a metaphor isn't a bad one and could be a useful technique for making creating a bit of distance between yourself and your work.

Of course, I'm using it as a metaphor; how much Gilbert sees it as one isn't that clear from the lecture and I don't blame you for being skeptical of it.

Valente has a very good point (actually she has very many good points in the response, which on second read is less about Gilbert's speech than the idea of 'muses in empty vessels' in general) that the 'muse' idea is a potentially dangerous, and I think particularly to beginner artists who can excuse no work being done with 'waiting for the muse' and also confusing for non-writers/artists (have had that conversation with people before: 'well no if I wait for inspiration nothing will get done.')

I do like your point that audience reaction isn't linked to the quality or goodness of the work. Hit songs, after all, have been written hastily as 'also on the album and never intended as a hit' and of course there are a number of other factors involved, such as the ones you mention; timing of a work being published is another. There is an awful lot of luck in being able to create something that will resonate with a lot of people (and having a good publicity machine behind you as well helps too!)

[threewalls]

I agree on not beating up on oneself when the writing is not as smooth as on others, or tying one's self-worth to work-- by this, do you mean tying your worth as a writer to how "easily" good writing comes?

I hope this doesn't sound insensitive, and I very much agree that ways to not beat yourself up are awesome, but I guess I see it as: I have good days and bad days, and so do all other writers. I once read Neil Gaiman's thoughts about such things somewhere on his blog (can't find right now, sorry!) To paraphrase: how smoothly a passage of writing comes out of one does not bear any relationship to how good the final product is.

I've found this myself, when I've had finished works I consider really good that have come both easy and others with torturous difficulty. There is also no relationship between the comments I get and whether a story was torturous or easy in coming, either.

But maybe the pressure is less on me all around. Aiming for publication, you might be under more pressure in more of a hurry to write "good" easily and fluidly as often as possible?

[jacquelineb]

Not insensitive at all. It's a very pragmatic and wise way of thinking about it and I should probably apply that to myself more.

I do agree with that thought that the ease or difficulty is not related to what is produced at the end; just had an experience recently where writing part of a scene felt 'wrong' and I first thought of the text as stodgy, but when I came back to it later it was actually quite alright.

Your onto something about the pressure to produce 'good' writing easily and quickly. I sometimes feel, illogical as it is, that there is certain time frame in which I 'have' to be published by. Therefore, must produce 'good' writing quickly, and if I don't or am not, well, there is something wrong with me, isn't there? Which I suspect wouldn't happen so much if I wasn't worried as much about what other people thought of me (my self-worth being tied into my perception of how others see me - which I'm aware isn't healthy but is sometimes hard to shake.) I suppose though awareness of those blockages is a good thing, and I wonder if thinking 'oh the muse isn't working today' is perhaps not so good after all because it doesn't encourage one to be aware of those what those blockages are, what underlying thought processes might be going on that are possibly hindering the 'flow' of the writing.