Challenge #08: Introducing the Muse
The muse is the antithesis of the inner critic. The muse draws unlimited inspiration from the world because it loves everything created as a mother loves homemade gifts. On the other hand, the inner critic loathes every creation and compels you to stop mid-piece under the pretense that nothing will save this piece from itself. Ideally, one wants a healthy combination of them both: the muse is a necessary to be creative and risky and the inner critic is required to have discipline and foster skill.
My muse left me many, many years ago and, in its place, is a cranky inner critic that hates to be bothered. However, as a child, I wrote blindly. Grammar was my only boundary. Within those walls, though, anything was possible. But then I started writing for school, where everything you do is either right or wrong and I was crushed to find that sometimes my writing was, in fact, considered wrong.
But, then, what makes me continue to write, you ask? The longing to create, specifically to create something awe-inspiring and timeless. The craving to put to words the images, the stories, the feelings, the moments in my mind and heart. The deep-seated yearning to regain that childlike wonder and passion. The compulsion to create beauty out ugliness and ugliness out of beauty and to bring meaning to the insignificant.
And lately? To put the inner critic in his place.
My muse left me many, many years ago and, in its place, is a cranky inner critic that hates to be bothered. However, as a child, I wrote blindly. Grammar was my only boundary. Within those walls, though, anything was possible. But then I started writing for school, where everything you do is either right or wrong and I was crushed to find that sometimes my writing was, in fact, considered wrong.
But, then, what makes me continue to write, you ask? The longing to create, specifically to create something awe-inspiring and timeless. The craving to put to words the images, the stories, the feelings, the moments in my mind and heart. The deep-seated yearning to regain that childlike wonder and passion. The compulsion to create beauty out ugliness and ugliness out of beauty and to bring meaning to the insignificant.
And lately? To put the inner critic in his place.