Great Blue

I think of him
As a southern bird
But up here in summer
He is not of unheard

A great blue heron
Keeps visiting the shack
At the lakefront, of course
Not the woods in the back

At dawn and at dusk
He presides at the dock
Regal and majestic
Assessing fish-stock

A symbol of self-reliance
In myth and in lore
Herons are loners
That is for sure

Which means he’s a bird
Who knows me quite well
And maybe that’s why
I’ve been under his spell

And why at my lakefront
He’s become quite a fixture
But he’s camera shy
So I don’t have a picture

All Right Reserved

Whose Muse

This is nothing
But a lame excuse
But blame this week’s stupor
On my difficult muse
Whatever I tried
My muse did refuse
To offer anything that
Might remotely amuse

Here it is, Sunday night
And my poem is really bad
Considering my standards
This is truly sad!
Maybe these next few days
My muse will turn to glad
And what I end up writing
Will somehow turn out rad

All rights reserved

 

 

My Moody Muse

When my muse comes down with a horrid blight

The writing goes wrong with no end in sight

Every word, thought, and sentence turns out trite

Leaving me feeling oh so contrite

And wondering if an end will appear for my impossible plight

But when the writing goes right

My muse alights

To amazing new heights

Of creative delights

Then the sun shines bright

And my mood takes flight!

Cueing the Muse

Everyone tells me to blog. Build a web presence, they say. Get your name “out there” so you sell lots of books once you’re published. I might understand the logic, but that doesn’t mean I know what to blog about. My daily existence doesn’t exactly provide a huge, long list of fascinating anecdotes to entertain the masses. That’s why I write fiction—because my real life is dull. On my best days I sit in one spot for hours and hours and pound away at my keyboard, only moving to refill my coffee cup. Boring, boring, boring. I am boring. Everyone tells me to just stop it. Stop being boring, they say, and become interesting, intriguing, and adventuresome. And then blog about it.

Interesting, intriguing and adventuresome? Surely there must be an easier solution. I like being duller than dull, and I’m quite sure I wouldn’t adventure well. So I decide that my blog needs a theme instead. Something that I can think about over coffee and never leave home to pursue. Some interesting concept that will amuse and enlighten my web audience. No matter that I have no web audience. If my theme is good, they will come.

After much deliberation, I have thought of a theme: Cueing the Muse. Stay tuned, you web audience you, and I will elaborate next time.

Lots of Questions

Last time I promised my web audience out there in Internet Land an interesting, amusing and enlightening BLOG THEME. And I imagine (I have an active imagination) that you have all been eagerly anticipating what this theme might be. So here it is: What inspires creativity? Cueing The Muse will explore how creative people create. Where do their ideas come from? What habits, events, people and experiences get the creative juices flowing? A snippet of conversation, a song, a fleeting image from a dream? Do creative people know inspiration when they see it, or does it happen subconsciously? Is it instantaneous, or do memories play a role? What cues the muse?

Now I need to ask you a few questions. First of all, are you creative? Do you write, paint, sculpt, or build furniture? Do you design houses, birdhouses, dollhouses, or quilts? Are you a photographer, musician, gardener, actor or cook? Do you have a friend who does any of these things or something I have left out? Please let me know what you create. Because I desperately need GUEST BLOGGERS. Lots and lots of them. Creative souls who want to share what cues their muse with the folks out there in Internet Land.

I’ll get us started next time with something about my writing.