Re-Engaging the Muse

About two weeks into the new year, I realized my muse had stopped working around the middle of December. Okay, nobody expects someone to work during the holidays but--geez!--a month off?

So I did what I almost always do when I start writing in the morning: I reread what I'd last written--thirty days or so earlier. Problem was I had only written a paragraph or less. Frantic, I sat with that mostly blank page and willed my pen to move. (Yep, I'm one of those people born with a pen in one hand and a notepad in the other who can't compose while typing to save her soul.)

Nothing happened. Nada. Zero. Zilch. My muse refused to return to work. Yikes! Was this the end of my writing career? Asking myself how I kept amused and sort of sane in the days before I became a published writer helped. What did I do? I read.

So I read a bunch of erotic romances--something I usually avoid when I'm trying to write one of my own. My desperation didn't "guilt" my muse into coming home. In fact, I had a mental image of her lying on a chaise, sipping pina coladas at some ten-star spa resort while I'm stuck in fog and rain.

Take a break, I told myself. Read something else. And I did. Meg Cabot's Insatiable; Carolyn Brown's I Love This Bar (which, since it's about cowboys, I didn't expect to like, but did); Jayne Anne Krentz's Running Hot; and Laura Moore's Night Swimming. But the book that topped my list of different, intrigueing, and KEEPER was Diana Peterfreund's Rampant in which virgins and unicorns star in a very unique way.

Well, I guess the muse is as fascinated by the written word as I am. She returned, refreshed and willing to work. Whew! I finished the chapter I'd started in December and began the next. Which leads me to a question: How do you re-engage your muse? I'd love to know, so please leave a comment!

CHOSEN is available now. Buy at http://tinyurl.com/4e4bxdz; SAVING RYAN'S PRIVATES is also available now. Buy at http://tinyurl.com/27mwe2f.

THEIR CONSUMMATE COURTESAN releases February 1, 2011.

Dee Brice

Erotic Fantasies Where Nothing is Forbidden