Yesterday, I watched THE MUSE, a 1999 comedy by Albert Brooks. I've been pretty down of late (about chronic pain and lack of writing or the energy to do much of anything) and figured I needed a good laugh about Hollywood, and writers, and our overall neurosis when it comes to writer's block, inspiration, and our muses.
There's a line in the movie where Jeff Bridges warns Albert not to piss off his muse (played by a flaky, demanding, wispy Sharon Stone), or else she'll take away his creativity and he'll never have another idea again. I laughed aloud and said into the air to my own muse: Is that what happened? Did I piss you off? Is that why you haven't spoken to me in almost eight months? If so, I'm sorry. I could really use some help. I really miss you.
I didn't think anything more about it until this morning when I awoke with voices in my head. Most people panic if they hear voices. Writers? We live to awaken to voices, for it means our minds are completely open, and creativity is flowing freely. We fear the silence, the lonely, deadly silence, but never the whispering or singing of our muses.
Anyway, there were thoughts forming around a theme from my own life (and current situation) -- What if you couldn't write again or do the one thing you loved more than anything else in the world? Meaning, what if you lost the very thing that defined you for the past 46 years? Who would you be? Who are you? Or rather, who do you think you are? Are you more than what you appear? Are you more than what you produce or create or contribute to the world or those around you? Who are you at your core?
And then I heard the characters begin to discuss this amongst themselves. These were not totally new characters to me. I had been playing around with an idea about a middle-age woman going through a particularly challenging time in life as her children grow and leave home and she is left alone to care for an ailing dog. But it was just an unformed idea, until this morning when it suddenly had a fully-formed theme that I could not only identify with, but latch onto fully.
Will this idea take off like a rocket? Probably not. I am not working at full capacity, but if I can wake up each morning with ideas percolating and sit down and spend even an hour outlining or developing this project, I think I can perhaps start to feel more like myself again, no matter how much pain I am in or how stuck or blocked I feel.
If nothing else, it will be cathartic, and allow me to make sense, in a fictional way, of the transitions I am going through in middle-age, as my identity changes once again and I deal with new challenges.
Tuns our you never know when you sit down to watch a movie, what it will inspire in you. And who knew Albert Brooks was my muse?
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