Creativity
One thing I really I love the English language is that its etymology and construction tells us so much about the inner workings of our minds which is, on first take, sometimes obscured.
For example, when Queen Victoria said “We are not amused”, I obviously wasn’t present but it tells us something about her state of mind at the exact time she said it.
At that exact point, she was probably temporarily disconnected from her Creative ‘Muse’.
This disrupted state is known as be-musement.
Being aligned with your Muse isn’t something just for writers, musicians and artists. Anyone who is interacting on Twitter, Facebook or social media sites needs access to their Muse nowadays.
This, by the way, occurred to me when I was chatting about getting in the writing groove yesterday at the blogging for business workshop with @fionahumberston.
So, it might sound obvious but, if you are not amused you are hardly going to be inspired about writing a blog – or a chapter of your book.
Look at just seven examples of things that don’t amuse us:
1. interruptions
2. feelings of anger
3. being in pain
4. being under a deadline
5. doing something we would rather delegate
6. doing something we don’t love or feel passionate about
7. doing something again perhaps because we rushed it the first time
So if any of these are happening to you, the natural reaction could be to stop writing.
An alternative is to embrace these non-amusements and work around and through them like this:
1. Avoid interruptions by diarising your date with your inner artist as if it was an appointment with a client – and if you can, add meditation or quiet “me” time into your routine
2. Write about your anger (but don’t necessarily publish it) – you will find this cathartic and it may bring closure
3. Where is your pain? Has it been brought on by one of these things that don’t amuse you? If so, adopting one of these strategies may well ameliorate it.
4. Whose deadline is it? Most of the time it’s your own self-imposed one – change it. If it’s external, have a conversation about moving it as you will find it’s not always as fixed as you think.
5. If you don’t like doing it, outsource it or delegate it!! By focussing on what you love, and trusting the process, you will find that it is monetisable – but in a way perhaps you didn’t expect.
6. If you don’t like doing something, how can you change the task, or your attitude to it, so you can both love and inject love into it.
7. Are you repeating yourself and going back over things twice? If so, take more time, diarise writing – when you repeat the task put more heart, soul and attention into it.
I’d love to hear your strategies for connecting with your Muse ….
Another great way to connect with your Muse is to find out more about them. I was fortunate enough to “meet” @amypalko on Twitter although we’ve never met in person.
Amy provides an amazing service whereby you discover your god and goddess archetype. My Muse turned out to be Hermes – the messenger of the gods – which fits in nicely with what I do which is to help people getting their messages out to the world. Strangely I was on the island of Herm in the Channel Isles around the time I found this out … or not.
Connect with Amy via Twitter or her blog if you want to find out more …
