The Muse

I have always worked with the help of a muse. She comes and goes at her own choosing and can't be coaxed or beckoned. The length of her stay is never predetermined and she leaves without warning. The only thing for sure is that while she is around, massive amounts of creativity can be coddled, but only on her schedule. It can't be saved up until you are ready to handle it, you have to be ready to ride the rapids when she shows up and put everything else on hold.

I am not sure she is the same muse every time and I'm not sure if it is female. According to the ancient Greeks it is a she and there are several, so I go with that. It is easy and who wants to argue with a Greek. Some times it is the pen and sketch pad she desires, some times craft tools, sometimes the keyboard. If she is the same muse every time she has so many different skills at her command. It is always best not to anticipate what medium she will need on any given visit. They must all be close at hand.

I know she is not corporeal. That is why you can never see her coming or even know she is actually here using any human senses. The only evidence the muse has come for a visit is the work. When she has left the work remains as the only testimony of her existence.

She arrived on October 1st and confiscated my key board. She dictated a script without stopping. I had no choice but to lend her my hands and my be there physically for hours while I watched it take place. She was not much into allowing me time to blog so I totally missed publishing a blog on Tuesday. A few hours ago the script was completed. It was a solid week of non stop writing, sometimes 12 hours a day. But the result is a real script, you can hold it and leaf through it. It has weight, it looks just like it should look. I keep stealing a glance of it out of the corner of my eye to make sure it is not an illusion. But there it is bound and ready. The muse will hang around for a few more polishes on the draft, but I can tell she is getting ready to move on probably because of my eagerness to hear it.

The Final Draft application has a voice function, and you can actually have the machine read your script to you. After only hearing it in my head for days, I lusted to hear it read aloud. I followed the procedure to make it happen. I assigned voices to the parts with the different voices they had, like, old man, girl, woman, man 1, man 2 etc., I clicked a button and suddenly the script was being performed. Sort of...

The machine began to read the text. The stage directions are nicely recited. I am so excited for the first scene to come alive. But, it is awful. These mechanical voices can't deliver a punch line with a bucket. It's just voices, mechanical inflections triggered off punctuation marks not comedy. The experience is something like hearing Stephen Hawlkings read a bed time story. I realize it will be a long time before actors are out of work in this electronic age. I question the reason for cluttering up the application with such a function. The muse was pissed, I could tell.

So... I will have to find real people and real actors to read this script to me so I can know what it means. I'm not sure the muse plans to stay that long.

As you were,
Jay