Past Projects 

Yesterday being Monday I decided to look around for unfinished projects awaiting my return.  Since it rained last night I  have to wait a day or two for any outside projects to dry, so that means I must search my list of inside projects.  I have spent the weekend drawing so my art muse has been active.  I decide my "writing muse" should be exercised. (Or is that exorcised... both words would be appropriate given the perception of the task at hand.)

I look through my list of documents and find my book on "How to be a Ventriloquist".  I have been writing this book for almost 40 years and have a file of drafts and research that fills a small flash drive. Several people have expressed an interest in publishing it and I have always wanted to write it.  It just seems to be the project that never ends.  To reacquaint myself with the text, I chose to read a draft with the most recent date.  Even this draft is a couple of years old.

It's fun to read stuff you've written long ago and forgotten what you said.  I was actually enjoying the draft, correcting, rewriting and editing as I read.  But after 20 pages or so the narrative suddenly went in a direction that didn't make any sense.  I seemed to have written myself into a corner.  That's when I came upon the last paragraph in the draft:

I have lost the muse and I can’t write anymore. The washing machine incident has left me hung out to dry. The arms of Morpheus have left me bereft of energy and desire to continue. The anticipation of a trip to beautiful Fargo has left me cold.

I don't remember what the "washing machine" incident was but I vaguely remember a corporate show in Fargo, ND in the middle of winter a couple of years ago and I was not looking forward to going there at 20 below.

You would think that a book on ventriloquism would be very easy for me to write.  It is one subject that I know most everything about.  Perhaps that is my problem, there is just too much to tell, the scope is just too big.  Like that analogy of five blind guys describing the elephant, each part is correct but it doesn't convey the total picture. 

Rather than push past the "lost my muse" paragraph I decide to write a blog about it.  I have know my muses to come and go on a schedule of their own,  but this vent book muse is really taking her time. If you see her... send her my way soon, Okay?

As you were,

Jay