The muse is sometimes like a dog.  The dog wants to go outside to go potty.  But once he gets out there…oh, wow!  So many interesting things!

That tree needs to be sniffed!

The wind blew and made a whooshing noise. I must bark.

Hmm.  Someone’s been here.  You been seeing anyone, human?  Can I meet them?

The muse gets silenced

All the muse wants to do is play, and explore.

But the world gets impatient.

“Get down to business,” it says.  “Time is money.  We can’t afford to waste it with wandering.”

The muse slinks off with its tail between its legs and hides.

The ideas disappear

Bud Sparhawk was joking when he said a man would write an idea on a postcard once a week and send it to him.

Writers came up after the panel and asked for the address!

Once ideas are shut down, it’s hard letting them romp free again, much less go potty.

The Writer Nerd strikes again

The nerd has to get out some statistics about how much creativity we actually lose from childhood to adulthood.  Check out the chart from Idea to Value.  The number is shocking, and horrifying.

We lose creativity because of evolution.

We lose it because we self-edit–“that’s a terrible idea!”

We unlearn how to be creative, how to come up with ideas.

That’s not good for the story.

Practice taking the muse out to potty

  • Go a to a museum
  • Take a short workshop (i.e., library, lecture, etc.)
  • Take a walk in nature
  • Follow the front of the car
  • Just see something new

Be like the dog wandering outside and stop and sniff the tree.

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