The creative process is quite different from what many people seem to imagine. Contrary to appearances, there is someone, or something outside of the creator that is involved. The nature of this entity is fluid and indescribable, but any working artist, scientist, writer or creator will be familiar with it. It does not appear on call. It does not produce what one expects. It does not perform to the written script. And yet it is the source of all artistic endeavor. Since the ancient Greeks, human creators have sacrificed and prayed in awe of the power of the Muse.

It is often envisioned as a feminine spirit: capricious, graceful, teasing, offering promises that aren't kept, and then suddenly showering gifts that are lovely beyond description. (Ah, you book reviewers, how little you seem to know of this lady, talking as if she is something under the author's control!)

My books are mine, and yet they are alien to me--as a child belongs to a parent and yet has a life of its own. I can guide and hope and nudge my characters this and that way, but in the end, they become what they become. I don't always like what they become myself, but like a parent, there are times when I just don't know what to do about it. Other times when I'm so proud of them I could bust.

I have taken a long time off from any real attempt at writing. I wrote 10 books in about 12 years, and by the time I reached the end of the tenth, I was quite simply writing on nerve and guts alone. I have only the vaguest memory of the plot of My Sweet Folly. I tried to begin my next book, which was due in a year. It took me quite a while to realize how deep into enemy territory I had taken myself, but when one day I stood in the kitchen, drinking a cup of tea and staring out the window, telling myself I had a deadline and had better get in there and get back to work--I burst into tears at the very thought of turning on the computer. I knew I was losing. For too long I had been demanding that my "muse" produce, and if it didn't happen, I'd take out all the guns and just force it. Five pages, ten pages, fifteen pages a day, no matter what they said, no matter if I worked till dawn. Just write, like it or hate it. Just meet the deadline. I had lost the lovely cooperation that I remembered from my early books, when all I wanted to do was write, whether I got paid for it or not. My muse and I, we were at war.

Muses don't fight fair, either. One day they tell you it's all working great, and then the next they vanish, and you can hear them laughing somewhere off over the hills. Then they just disappear completely, and leave you in a devastated landscape with no supplies. That is what the past few years have felt like to me.

With some reservation, however, I can describe the present situation as "promising." Lately, after several years of full retreat, I have been entertaining my muse to treaty talks. I have to tread very carefully, as there is not a lot of trust between us now. We work together for a bit, and then as soon as things seem to be getting a little tense, we break it off and go our own ways. But a momentum seems to be building. I think about Allegreto when I lie down to go to sleep, what he would be thinking, what he's afraid of, what he wants. And it's still there when I get up to write. That's a good sign the capricious lady is hovering close by.

LK
2/20/2000