Disappointment is my muse. That doesn’t sound sexy, does it? When writers talk of muses, readers want to hear about the super mind sex that is going on between a writer and his muse. They want to believe that a writer performs a ritual and then sits down with a incarnation of sexiness that just inspires them into a diurnal emission. Muses should be magical creatures full of wonder and lust.
Instead, my inspiration comes from disappointment. When I walk into a bookstore and a sexy title catches my eye, I pick it up and read the back. BEFORE I have read the back, I have this idea of what the book is about. I have this reason why I picked it up in the first place. Maybe I read the title and it made me think of scientists having sex with their creations. Maybe I thought the book was going to be about a contest between sluts to determine who was the most depraved. Or maybe I thought it was some weird idea that blew my mind as soon as I saw the cover, yet it was an idea that has always lurked in the back of my mind. That BEFORE moment is the best part of the book because when I do read the back and I get a summary of what the book is really about, then I find out it’s a book about vampires.
These days it’s always about vampires. Or werewolves. Or goddess forbid, werewolves and vampires.
Books disappoint me. The longer I browse, the angrier I get. A book that looked like it was about housewives conspiring to form a secret slave society is really about vampires. A cover that shows a lovely Asian woman and her teenage male slaves is really about vampires. Even when the back lives up to the cover, and you realize that this really is going to be a book about a torrid romance between a cruel policeman and a sultry scientist, you discover in the last paragraph that their arch enemy is going to be a vampire.
It’s the same with movies. It’s the same with blogs. It’s the same with sex stories. That’s not to say I don’t enjoy anything. I enjoy a lot of things and when I am awash in good stories, my output decreases. It’s the crap that I need in order to write. I need that spark of promise that turns into frustration and loss. It’s in that moment that I realize that if I want to read a story about romance that takes place entirely on a phone, then I’m going to have to fucking write it myself.
Hopefully when I finish my story, someone else will see it and go, “Now this, this is what I have been looking for”.
2 Responses to “Inspiration”
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In the end Shon I think most writers write for themselves, at least most true writers, honest writers do. The ones that write for an audience end up being slaves to what that audience wants, which is certainly one way to go, usually profitable. But I am with you on the frustration aspect as well, I usually think of something I would want to read, a situation I would like to see resolved, and then write about it.When the “flow” is going, it is more dictation than writing.
And I bet one person will say I wish there was a vampire in it. Teehee