First steps into the literary arena

Setting: I am sitting in my adorably earthy dorm room in my wonderfully pink round chair. I am reading a book from a tall pile of similar books concerning how to be an affective and great creative writer. and part of the reading involves creativity on my part as i read. i am adorable right now with my maroon glasses perched on my nose, my hair in a side ponytail (reflective of the 80's) and wearing a L-O-V-E shirt with Old Navy purple plaid pajama pants. What i am basically saying is i am in my zone and ready to roll with my first creative writing assignment. yay!

i hear the incessant noise of both Ams and Bex in my room arguing about food and Lou. Words like, "I am hungry!" "Eh!" and "We need Lou" float all around me as i ponder the muses i have in my life and why they are my inspiration for my writing.

This is my first blog activity. it is an activity from a book i am reading to help me expand my writing skills. "Courage and Craft: Writing your life into story" by Barbara Abercrombie. and the assignment is: "Who or what is your muse? Write what he or she is telling you."

Now i have taken some serious consideration as to who would be my muse and i have narrowed it down to a theme rather than an actual person or book. i have narrowed it down to classic works such as Jane Austen's works, Wuthering Heights, Shakespeare (Hamlet) and The importance of being Earnest.

Why do you ask? i love the complexities of these writings! i love the style, the plots, the symbolism, the parallelism of time and characters, and of course the vocabulary! everything about these classical writers are beautiful! and there is a serious depth and perception to the books characters that i feel todays writings lack.

just recently i read wuthering heights and i LOVED the book. there was a surrealism to the book that made me feel as if i had slipped into a dream as read the book. a vague memory drifts across my mind as i think of Heathcliff and Catherine. but the style of the book and everything else about it inspired me so deeply. i instantly wanted to write a novel that had the same parallelism of the characters as wuthering heights.

My muse is more than just one thing. i think the center of my muse is passionate depth i find in these classic writings. there is a remnant of undying love that exists in these writing to attract me to them and i cant get enough.

and so i must conclude that my muse are the writings of the past that remind me of where we came from and apart of me seeks to revive that depth and bring it back to the world with a passion.

i don't mean this disrespectfully at all. but i feel like todays writings of any type are missing a depth to their words. though these words bring forth emotional responses but the soul within does not cry out for more or even feel a sense of completion when the books last page has turned. the classics always give a deeper sense of completion than any modern book has, and i simply cannot pin down where it is stemmed from. maybe it is just the nostalgia of the writings that births a deeper response but i think that it is so much more.

and so i stand firm in my conviction that my muse are the classics because my heart feels so much happiness when i read them.