My sister-in-law Karen bought my book The Cavanaugh House today, and about 20 minutes after she left she called to tell me how much she liked my acknowledgement of my muse, Boris. I have a small section called “About Muses” at the end of the book after the Acknowledgements page. Karen had turned to that first thing and was very moved by it. I wanted to share it here to increase the chance that people read it.
I admit that I sometimes don’t read the Acknowledgements page or anything included at the end of a book. I usually close the book (or my Kindle) and hold it close while I savor the wonderful experience of a good read. I want to hold on to the emotion and spirit of the story for a while, so I stop at “The End.”
In case you do the same when you finish a book, here is what I wrote about Muses. Let me know if you have experienced the same.
-About Muses-
Muses were a regular part of instruction for my high school literature students. The opening lines of The Odyssey can be translated, “Sing to me, O Muse…” But that context made a muse ancient, distant and unreachable to me. After viewing Elizabeth Gilbert’s TED.com talk on Creativity, I realized that muses were very present to us today.I was aware of inspiration from outside of myself as I revised Love’s Destiny and wrote Love’s Spirit, but it was during the writing of The Cavanaugh House that I was formally introduced to my muse, Boris.
Whatever your creative passion is, and you do have one, sit in silence for a moment before you begin working and acknowledge your muse. Allow him/her to flow through you and inspire your creation whether it be writing, music, art, auto mechanics, engineering… whatever. Just listen. And if you listen carefully, you might even learn your muses’s
name. I did.
name. I did.
I would love to hear about your muse and how you work and live together.
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