So now I feel it's time to introduce my Muse, Margaret.

I invented my Muse one random day when I couldn't connect what was happening on the page to something existing inside me and, like any creatively insane individual, decided to excise it by placing it outside myself. Personifying her was easy enough -- a classical Greek Muse would suffice -- but I needed a name and it couldn't be one that stayed put. (My writing is far too sporadic and prone to wild, erratic moods for that kind of stability.)

I call her "Maggie" when things are going well and "Margaret" when things are not. This nom de plume and nom de guerre are what I most often call my little inspirational sprite. Sometimes it's a friendly "Mags" or a genial "Meg" or "Peg" that can curdle into "Old Moggy" when things are particularly hellish. By placing my creative inspiration outside myself, I can look at my writing more objectively and not spin into my usual pitches of euphoria or overwhelm/stress. I can pretend to have someone to look to, someone to question, someone to laugh with, and (of course) someone to blame.*

Right now, ol' Mags and I are having a creative disagreement. I want to concentrate on my new WIP while she likes to dip her toes into the pool of the half-done project that I have chosen to set aside. I've decided to do this switch absolutely, resolutely, and yet she keeps coming to me with offerings of wet leaves and discarded bits of string to show me how pretty they are and how well they work together and my, my, my, isn't that thread of thought interesting...? I am trying to ignore her and concentrate on my desert tale. Not the verdant hedge mazes. Not the ubiquitous charms of old faery lore. Not the fun and frightening cast of characters that I've left brooding on the side of the road waiting for next new twist... AHHH! Curse it, she's doing it again!

This is what I get for languishing in the in-between, waiting for revisions to start on the book-under-contract and not daring to continue the series in my head.

If I picture her right now, she looks a lot like this, which is of little comfort aside from the fact that that book sold rather well. Although that book isn't mine. For that, we'll just have to see...

But she's not posing for any of the cover art and that's final!


* I don't believe Maggie is real any more than I believe any of my book characters are real, either. But for those of you who write, you know that sometimes these pretend people you make up go and do the darndest things, whether we want them to or not. How real is that? Hmm? Yeah. I know.