I agree with shadowwalker, that's the definition of muse that I and my friends use. My connection to muse likens to being involved an in-and-out relationship with a partner who is inattentive and always leaves when it gets serious. It really is a perishing state for me. When it comes it's great because things happen easier and time flies. But I've spent more time trying to get into a muse than actually being in one. It's also an excuse I've used to not get things done. I don't personally believe in a muse. It's just a creative hypnotic state, or maybe even a personality in all of us, that takes us to our creative peak. The only way to access it is writing and forcing yourself to when you don't want to.
@shadowwalker so you don't find inspiration in literary tradition and language, and you don't find it in women of the oposite sex?
You shouldn't be, because poetry is distilled emotion, the art of saying as much as possible in as few words as possible. It's all about evoking emotion in the reader you will never meet, who may be of a different age group, gender, and cultural background—all techniques the writer should be seeking to master. That doesn't mean we should all be poets, but we should know what makes it work, so we can add impact to our own prose. I'd recommend that every aspiring writer read the online sample to Stephen Fry's, The Ode Less Traveled, to learn more about how chosing the words we use can add dramatic impact to our stories.
@123456789 yeah, I guess 'Allo 'Allo is not the most popular series of your generation c'mon, play along - isn't art suppose to be about reading through and into completely illogical stuff www.salon.com/2008/09/25/attracted/ use your imagination @Fitzroy Zeph hm, Musicians? @JayG "distilled emotion" - what happened to distilled thought and distilled experience?
I find inspiration every time I look around, hear a sound - every time I use any of my senses. Specifically tradition and language? Not really. And no, I don't find much inspiration in women of either sex...
I always considered a muse to be something that inspired an artist to create, innovate, and work till they pass out of exhaustion. It could be a person, an ideal, or whatever. For me, I have someone I want to gift it once I get published and thank them for making me believe I could do it. It's silly, but it keeps me writing because it's important. Maybe it ain't right, but I keep on writing.
Of course all that being said, I have, literally, been given an entire novel, start to finish, in a one unexplainable lump. One evening I was editing a novel that was nearing the final stages of creation when a name popped into my head: Teal-Eye. I’d never heard the name and nothing could account for it being there in my thoughts. But there it was, in the forefront of my mind, demanding attention. Who, I wondered, was Teal-Eye, and what did she want of me? As I wondered, another name appeared: The Bear. And with it came a third name, Samantha. I was stunned. Nothing in my life-experience accounted for such a thing happening. But then, with a suddenness that was astounding, the entire story dropped into my mind, leaving me feeling as though I’d just spent a hard hour at manual labor. I went from comfort to exhaustion in about ten seconds. My jaw was probably hanging, at that point, but I knew one thing for certain: I had to record that story, at least in outline, before it faded—though it never did. That story was written in my mind in lines of purest fire. Hurriedly, I scribbled four pages of plot and scene outline, then sank back into my chair feeling drained and uncertain of what just happened—and wondering why. It was nearly a year before I got back to Samantha and Teal-Eye and began to write their story. But when I did I never referred to those notes. There was no need. When I finished, the story was exactly as it was on the day the muse presented it. It had romance, danger, guns, stone axes, sex, rock climbing, some nice cuddling, and a really cute little girl. And did I mention sex? It was a fun story to write. Was it something that built up on my mind without my realizing it till my subconscious released it? Did some long dead writer say, "This poor bastard has worked so hard...but he's never going to get it right," and gift me with a story out of pity? Who knows. Who cares? It got a yes, and was my first sale. Damn, I love when that happens.
The same thing hapoened to me!!! Only she said her name was Bia and she worked for a government agency.
Women don't inspire me except when they're not wearing anything. Women of the opposite sex would be men, and they inspire me even less, unless they are very passable transsexuals. I write because of the stories in my head that need to be set free - or is that the succubus that escaped from the pentagram the other day because I was careless with the chalk. Hmm.
I'm quite sure that Dracan6 capitalized "Muse". I can hardly have a "personal definition" of what Apollo or Zagreus are. They are, or are not. The same goes for Muse. All nine and a half of them. As for 2., I think the distinction between the romantic inspiration and the modern colloquial usage of the term "inspiration" is /should be obvious to anyone marginally interested in the written word. That "inspiration" and "muse" are not synonims, should it really be explicated? And the differences between the romantic use of the term "muse" and it's colloquial modern use (too often equalized with casual fuck) should also be obvious. I am probably wrong to think that someone at least marginally interested in literature SHOULD know that a colloquial usage of any term is NOT the most precise usage of that term (especially when it comes to ideas that shaped the freakin' western literature as we know it). My (often misplaced) hope is that reading, writing and being interested in any form of literature should make a person at least interested in finding and understanding the actual meaning (and possibilities of meanings) of any particular word... well, my hope is, most certainly, misplaced. "Women of the opposite sex"? I still can't believe you don't get it...
I think I see what you mean. It's like electrons of the opposite charge. Or red of the opposite color. Or clockwise of the opposite rotational direction. Or east of the opposite west. I think I'm confusing myself ...
Okey, okey, okey. You know what a gender is? And what sex is? And how you can be of an opposite sex but still not be of an opposite gender? Gender expectations? Masculine and feminine traits? Gender roles? Sexual traits? "I'm a lumberjack and I'm okey"?
Why not? That is, why is there a winner? If a term has more than one commonly used meaning, then it has more than one commonly used meaning. Are you going to tell a person who uses the word to refer to a source of inspiration that, no, that's not what he means?
I am well aware of what a Muse is, and yet I still refer to my own personal interpretation as muse, because there are no more fitting words. He is everything I enjoy about writing and I wouldn't write a thing were he not in it. He has more than one name, is intelligent but not wise and is an eternal victim. This is why most things I write are sad.
I meant this to be an analytical/theoretical, discussion. . . A reflection on thyself. . . And, the arguments are very good! However, don't make this a thread an ego battle; please!
No sorry, the original phrase is almost brilliant in how little sense it could ever possibly make. I'm staring at this phrase, trying to comprehend it...it's like dividing by zero.
@ChickenFreak of course not - it's not my to force a full adult into thinking...Though I'll try with kids Why the colloquial usage of a culturally significant term is not the most precise one? Why should a (wo)man of letters (not necessarily an intellectual, but someone devoted to 'letters', not as in 'mail' but as a metonymy of language) know at least the etiology of a term (s)he uses? As I said, my hope was misplaced. And no, it's rude to tell someone he "doesn't mean" something. It's also rude not to tell someone that he just might be wrong for using a term in a wrong way (not the case here, but...) or for using it in a way thatlimits the meaning of the word to a colloquial dimension. Again, you can always say that "everybody can choose their own meaning for the word" and many half-literates would praise you as their own Muse @123456789 It's from an old British sit-com and it is supposed to make little sense while actually meaning a lot. It's called absurd. And it's called a metaphor. Yeah. Yup.
"Muse" has two perfectly good meanings. I have no problem with that. The use of words changes, and in this case the newer meaning is well-established, not some new usage coined by a few people. You are aware that the use of the word to mean "a source of inspiration" is extremely common, right? You're just rejecting that extremely common usage? I have my own pet peeves in common word usage--for example, the use of "decimate" to mean near-total destruction, ignoring the one-tenth meaning. I will probably hold that grudge permanently, but that usage will march along whether I like it or not. The same is true of this word.
