To Muse - Or Not.

That is the question and the answer might surprise you.

I know as writers we’re not supposed to ‘muse’. It’s seen by many as indulgent, unorganised and I suspect rather poor form. Instead we’re supposed to set a steady pace, formulate clear points, maintain structure, keep things interesting for the reader. All true, except that’s not how I write or why I read - because that’s not how I live. I have a constant stream of dialogue and potential stories running through my head at any one time. I take flights of fancy while I load my shopping basket, I am a perpetual day dreamer. I arrive at a beautiful location and hear a film score playing as the sun breaks through. I’m distracted by watching light filter through leaves in the late afternoon and early morning light. I let the ocean tell me stories through the open window while I fall asleep. Musing is my muse. I need to stare into the middle distance in order to gain perspective. 

As writers there is a difference between the final edit of a book that is to be published and our daily duty, which for many is to sketch with words. The exploration of a thousand ideas that float off like seeds on the wind, abandoned but also released ‘out there’.  I don’t visit a gallery to see faded grey sketches, but I also find that they are no less beautiful than the finished oil suspended in gilt. While the written work that has not yet been visited by an editor can feel laboured or somewhat full, even disorganised or repetitive, the polish of the final edit can, for me anyway, sometimes feel just a little too perfect. I like to see the thinking, the fingerprint smudge. The abandoned right arm in favour of the eye. To be privy to the creative process itself. With the development of AI, we might not even need editors in the future and in the end I suspect, we may well in fact crave the authenticity of human error. 

For me to muse is to live. It is to question this life. It is to allow myself the time to think and feel and explore things that I may not have noticed before. I remember the hours I spent waiting for buses in London, before the smart phone had arrived. Hours watching and wondering about all these strangers that surrounded me. Hours musing about life and all of my experiences and what they meant, all within one small day. Musing, for me, is what it means to be alive. The endless questioning, the elusive answers only given to us as we graduate from this life. The question mark that tormented George Emerson in Room With A View.

“Choose a place where you won't do very much harm and stand in it for all you are worth, facing the sunshine.” 

E.M Forster, ‘Room with a View’.

I am not for the concise lists of others, clear stanzas laid out to grab my attention. I am for the dusty shelves of a forgotten junk shop, where treasures and small stories are waiting to be found. There is no sensible order to my library, instead I covet stacks of bound paper and all the worlds they contain. Musing for me is to slow down, to pause and allow the mind to wander unabated, untethered to a point. I don't want to read the abridged version nor look at the study notes.  I want to take my time in this life. I have nowhere to go despite what I keep telling myself. We’re all so busy these days, we must perpetually ‘get to the point’, don’t waste our time, we have other things to do, somewhere else to be, and maybe we should just watch the movie instead?

But if you’re like me, then I to want wander around that moss covered floor in the woods with you while you meander off into long winded ramblings. As long as I can see what you see, feel it and smell the earth where you lay your head and gaze up towards the same sky. As long as I can hear the fog creeping in and know what the pit of your stomach feels like while you wait in anticipation then I will stay.  

I’m in no rush when I read. I came here to see you. You’re not a recipe, you’re not a travel guide or fitness schedule, I have hours to spare, it just may take me months of stolen moments. I’ll hear your loss and sadness at love forgotten on a park bench somewhere. I’ll know that they still have hope after all they went through to find their way home. I’ll hide with you in the early morning light when you think you’re all alone. I’m there with you every step of the way. If your thoughts get tied a little up a little I’ll wait while you catch your breath and remember where you were when you lost your focus. I will wait while you indulge yourself describing the salt in your hair, the taste of it and smile knowingly.  As long as what you write is for the joy of it, as long as you’re not trying to complicate matters to win a Booker Prize then I’ll wait. I also don’t need to read all the praise given by every newspaper in the opening pages. They’re usually quite wrong anyway.  I’ll sit with you and take a journey as long as I can feel it, repeat yourself if you need to. I am for the long way round, for the path covered in fallen leaves, unswept. I don’t need the way to always be clear or the sign posts in bold, you have my full attention. Muse away.