Caught in the Tuna Net

The Captive Water Fae

I was writing to a younger friend who is trying to wrestle inspiration to the ground and get it to spit out a story that is hanging around. We’ve chatted about various issues over the year; amongst them is the on-again, off-again nature of her muse. Myself, I struggled through a ten-year dry spell, and did Julia Cameron’s course twice–lots of good tools there.
But this is what I figured out this morning about getting it jump-started, and I wanted to share:

I was thinking about your story-work this morning earlier and I thought perhaps you might like to take a different tack, one that lets you have more of a dialog with your Self (your muse, if you like).

Start with the thing that your heart goes to right off, the elf & the human together, yes? Then ask questions and wait for a reply (or a picture, which is a reply).

Example (not telling you what should happen, just trying to show what it might feel like):

Your muse: My elf and my human are sitting together in a sunny place.

You: What does it look like?

They’re on a stone bench in front of an old, old building, looking out over the overgrown ruins of high-tech city.

Why is it overgrown and in ruins?

They found it together while looking for something.

What were they looking for?

<muses dodges a bit> The human has a map in his hand.

Were they there because of the map?

Yes…

…and so forth.

It’s like playing interactive fiction with yourself. Just wait on the answers patiently. If the muse dodges, it’s because you’re supposed to follow it and go in a different direction. Eventually, it will get to telling you stories on its own, or showing you movies in your head—and then you have to write fast enough to keep up with them!

If you keep editing before you get the pictures or story out, you’re telling your muse that you don’t like what it’s saying and it will shut up.

If you consciously decide you want to go in a certain direction for…well, an ego reason, say (like wanting to be unique), and that’s not the story it has for you, it will shut up.

You have to trust it to tell you a story and let it have its head. Follow it. It won’t lead you astray, no matter how weird or mundane the stuff that comes out. What comes out is what you need to hear or be doing.

After all, your muse is not different from you. It’s still you, just a part that has learned to be quiet. Unfortunately, you have silenced the gatekeeper to your soul. You have to undo that in order to truly live.

And I gotta say, this is all related to the issues of trying to fit into a mold that isn’t yours, as opposed to seeing what kind of unique creature you really are. You won’t be all that weird or unsociable or unlovable if you let go and grow the way your supposed to. (If you were really *wrong* inside, you’d already be having major psychological problems and breaks—so I’m not worried.) In fact, you might be a little miffed that you’re really pretty normal, sane, and well-adjusted. Be glad for that!

I have these grand mythical places in the mists of my beginning—probably quite mundane, in reality, small and fragile against the tides of time—and the Houston house is one of them, R.F. Isbell’s now historically-designated home on 639 Heights Boulevard. Mayor Isbell was my great-grandfather on my mother’s side. I’m glad someone saw fit to add it to the register, so there’s more of a likelihood that I might get to see it some day. Nobody in the family owns it, that I know of.

These places, in the telling, take on larger-than-life stature, places where my mother and her sister visited as children during hot summers, now only known through curled and fading black and white photographs of children in pale dresses, with smiling but still sober-looking ladies holding their hands on bungalow steps. Or a picture of my grandfather in his christening dress, from that era. (Yes, little boys in 1903 did wear christening dresses, all the children did.)  I open formal photographer’s pictures in sepia paper folders that smell pleasantly of paper mold, carefully preserving a diva, my great-grandmother, who sang for many, back in the early days of the twentieth century, almost a hundred years ago, whose trust fund is all that I have of her. I never even heard her voice once.

When I am done here, less than nothing of me will go into the future, like writing on water, like last winter’s crumbling leaf, the last passing sigh.

I’m glad this structure in the south still stands for a little while.

The Isbell house on Archiplanet

ZOMG, Steve has his own Wikipedia page. Not that I should be shocked, Steve is a museum-worthy artist, certainly. I make mention of this because I was explaining to a lovely young person that Steve helped me immensely when I was floundering around and in my twenties and thirties, just by being encouraging and kind.  I hope to pay it forward.

And it’s fun to see images of paintings I remember being painted! In his basement in Alexandria.

I also remember a yellow sticky of cowboy curses (darn! shucks!) stuck to his big old oak easel. His youngest, Zara, was very small, and those were the nicer versions he was supposed to use instead of the usual variety. And a story about Frank Frazetta, who taught him that whatever paints you use, do not stint on good brushes. Things like that.

He was very kind about my awful first paintings. Bless you, Steve.

Go see his lovely web site: http://www.stephenhickman.com/

A wonderful young friend of mine wrote in a forum:

Thing is see…I dunno what my perfect is. I dunno what I have to reach to be able to look at what I do and go “Yea I really like that.”

I see perfection in so many other people and things that sometimes i defeat myself before I’ve begun….I just dunno how to break that away from my mind.

I see perfection everywhere…everywhere except from within myself….I’m not really sure why.

>_<

Oh, honey. You *knew* I was gonna see this, didn’t you? *Pats the sweetie pie*

Another poster in the forum said that flaws and imperfections were desirable attributes. Here’s the other thing: This is the sort of quest that turns into a spiritual journey, and you can learn some very interesting things along the way. But if you never start, you’ll never arrive.

There is a Japanese aesthetic that says that something *too* symmetrical, too even, too “perfect” is not perfect. Pretty much, something that *looks* natural is considered perfect–the little flaws are treasured. Unevenness and asymmetry are sought after.

Therefore, every little flower in a meadow is perfectly what it is supposed to be. AND…every little human being on the planet as well—the good, the bad, the suffering, and the happy. You are being exactly what you are supposed to be! Interesting deviations from exactitude are considered desirable!  Anything without those…is imperfect.

Now, finding out and bringing the “what I’m supposed to be” into consciousness and nurturing it, is called living dharmically (I may stretch the definition a bit here) in the yogic teachings.

The only thing you should want to be when you grow up—is yourself! That’s it! Nothing else.

This is why sometimes, after decades (I am over 50) of messing around, stopping, starting, screwing up, procrastinating, and occasionally working hard, when I sometimes find I’ve “nailed it,” by achieving a sought-after balance in a piece of art or design or writing, something that makes me and others pleased to behold it—well, it’s not “perfect.”  It’s just what it should be, no more or less.

I mean, hell, there’s always someone with more technical skill or imagination out there! I think the issue is to take in hand your definitions rather than to randomly going around measuring all sorts of things and people with widely varying backgrounds, skill, desires, and so forth against one standard of…well, what DO you mean by “perfect?”

I know what I like, anyhow: Poise in motion, composition, and execution; freshness in ideation. Artistic realism and naturalism.

Try using words other than perfect to describe what it is that makes the something desirable! You may get some clues that way.

Since I started this blog, I have completed the drafts of 4 books of urban fantasy, laced with science fiction, a modicum of erotica, and cyberpunkishness. My writing muse is pretty happy with me most days.

Along the way, I decided that I really, really wanted to be able to see my figments, and took up working with Poser, which I had put down three years ago, having been worn out by working as a merchant in the Poser community, and due also to getting a job after being laid off for 8 months. I was most grateful for the job at Real Magnet in Bethesda, but it was a very intense one and pretty much ate my life, as I was so tired after work that I did nothing creative at all for a long time, except a bit of jewelry-making.

Leaving Real Magnet for Amtrak opened up a lot of head space, apparently. In January of 2007, I believe it was, inspiration finally exploded. This is the deep, dark secret—no longer! I was playing Sims2, and having a blast. This apparently caused the figments to awaken, and some of them walked off the screens of the Sims and became far, far different from their original paper-doll forms, assuming depth, breadth, and their own voices and lives. It was like having a movie running in my head 24/7.

I let it out. It was the best thing I ever did.

And I finished the very first draft of the very first book inside of three months, I believe, about 300 pages (it’s since expanded, necessarily). Each successive one has gone slower and slower. They have not stopped, but it’s reached a steady walking pace that does allow me to do visual as well as verbal art. So, midway through book number four, in August of 2008, I went back to Poser. This time, I had some money, some energy, and the drive to depict. Again, the figments leaped off the screen of my mind an onto the computer screen.

Yesterday I posted my 101st picture on this web site, over in the 3D gallery. I have done more than that, but that’s 101 Dalmatians—I mean, images that are keepers. Now I can see my figments when I want to! And I have met new ones along the way, who are keeping me busy with book five.

I have no idea if I will ever publish the books. I have been published as an illustrator, some minor stuff including a short-lived comic, a book cover, and some gaming materials—so it’s not like I’ve never been there. The books need tidying up and a good editor. My dear AJ Savill has had a major positive impact on the first book, and helped the others mature into better works. Thank you, thank you AJ. Ms. Karen Fox has also taken up the mantle of reader, but as with other volunteers, can only do what the rest of her life permits her to do.

I have, meantime, been quite driven to depict. My dear Kay will attest to this, since I all but chase her away when I’m working. I think the point of this particular bit of autobiography is that for once in my life (a) I let the muse run away with me, (b) I’ve had enough mileage as a designer, painter, and writer (of non-fiction) that I’m no longer as bedevilled by doubts as I was when I was young, and (c) I am persistent. I think the latter is key. It’s not rocket science: you practice anything daily, and you will improve, even if you have no talent for it. (God knows, I learned how to bowl properly, and I have absolutely zero talent for that. ) If you have both talent and a desire to do the whatever-it-is, then practice will improve your work, if you are willing to learn and try even a little bit.

In the Virile Noir thread(s) on the DAZ3D forums, which LT Roberts and I host (more or less), we have had the very special joy of watching others, encouraged and helped, improve significantly in the past eleven months. And we have improved ourselves, as we were just noting the other day. I owe LT a lot, for his friendship and encouragement. Thank you.

So: KEEP TRYING, you artists. I’m watching you.