by Elton Gahr

Created on: May 17, 2009

One of the oldest concepts in writing is that of a muse. They were originally considered supernatural beings who imparted great ideas to writers but in the modern parlance a muse is something a bit more mundane, but something that inspires the writer. Because these muses are now something that is not supernatural that puts the pressure back on the writer to find that muse. So, what can be a muse and how can you find it?

The good news is you probably already have a muse if you look carefully enough. One of the reasons that we often miss these muses is that we assume they have to be something bigger or more important. Perhaps a person that inspires us to write, or a earth shattering idea. These are great if they exist, but the truth is that anything that inspires you, anything that makes your mind race with ideas is a muse.

This means to discover a muse you must start by examining two things, what are you excited to talk about, and what are you afraid to talk about. These two things may seem like polar opposites but in many ways they are not. They both hold their positions, be it excitement or fear because of their level of importance.

Try to be specific when you think about both. Consider the things that you love and saying football isn't going to get you far, but if you can narrow the beam. Consider what it is about football that excites you. Is it the strategy or the physicality, or the combination of the two? Is it the similarity to war, or the importance of the rules? There are a hundred things that make up most of the things we love, but only a few are of true importance to you.

Moving on to the things that we fear it is most useful to examine the things that we feel we are unable to talk about because of social convention. These are ideas like sexism, racism, politics, religion, and anything else that you wouldn't be likely to bring up on a first date. Do any of these truly weigh on you? If so they may be a muse waiting to be released. Often when we finally free ourselves to talk about those things that we fear we find that they are the things that we most want to talk about.

No matter if your muse is a person, a place, an idea, or something completely different the most important thing we can do to continue that writing spark is to constantly search for inspiration in our lives. We are surrounded by beauty and pain nearly all the time so as you become more involved and interconnected with the world the entirety of the world can become your muse.

Learn more about this author, Elton Gahr.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.