My muse is rather put out with me.

I show up at the page after days of procrastinating and I speak to my muse, “Impress me.”  Her reply is  “Not sure, babe.  You have been ignoring me for days. Now you want me to produce on demand. And you want a fully formed idea right off the bat.  You haven’t put in the work.  You have to prove to me you are willing to show up and write even when you don’t feel like it.   I need you to commit.”

Facing the blank page and inviting her to show up takes a lot more courage than writing a new online class. Writing the class is easy. It is just organization. I know the material. But the creative storytelling projects feel like I am trying to grab formless desires and put them on the page.

“I was going to write a one woman show for the theater this year, but I just don’t have the energy for it.  I don’t even know what I want to say.” I tell her.  “Just write something,” she pleads.  “All I can give you is 15 minutes of writing squeezed in on lunch today. No expectations of greatness here. I’ll just journal.”  She smiles and nods, encouraging me to set aside perfectionism and the idea that I’m wasting time writing piece after piece that goes no where.  Her voice is lyrical and soothing.

Just write my love.

There is nothing you create that is wrong.

There is nothing you write that is wasted.

The more you let your voice be heard, the more we will dance.

Don’t hold it inside my love.

Don’t measure it against others or your vision of what it could be like.

Dance with what is now.

Dance with it in the swirling smoke of uncertainty.

Dance as the world burns down and you struggle to find your new place in it.

If you are willing to operate in the uncertainty, I will meet you in the fog.

Write about the mundane truth of your world with your eyes and know that many will say, “I too have that experienced that but did not have the words.”

Carve out stolen moments of time for us.  Consider it an illicit rendezvous.

There will never be a perfect time for us to dance.

Make time my love for the callings of your heart.

The changes you want to make, the whispers of your soul.

Your time is short my love.  Enjoy every morsel of it.

This life is like a blink of the divine eye in the scope of eternity.

If it feels like all you get is crumbs of time, savor the crumbs.

Embrace them.

For the full banquet is indeed coming if you keep showing up.

Remembering

I didn’t know what I was writing when I started writing From Scared to Sacred.  In that book, my soul voice told me “we have many books to write, many stories to tell, many miracles to perform.”  She and I had a deal, I wrote every day for an hour for over a year and then I left the muse as I worked on editing and promoting the book.   I haven’t been consistent with her in a long time.  I kept expecting miracles to happen as though the fully formed next book or show was going to be handed to me and I could work on it the way I work on my more business oriented writing.  “Do you want magic?”  She whispers to me.   “Yes,” I whisper back.  “Then commit to showing up.  I need some devotion here,” she smirks.

I take a deep breath and schedule writing times into my calendar to make time in my ordinary day for the extraordinary to meet me there.