While afternoon rays played across the fireplace, she watched the somber image of Dionysus on the bricks.  His eyes seemed to zero in on her.  He wasn’t real.  Muses and gods never were.  They were internal, collective wisdom locked up in human cells—aspects of the soul hidden in the subconscious.  People externalized them to reach their latent genius.  (Dionysus, Act I, Scene 2)

When Kristen, the main character in my book—DIONYSUS, a woman, a man, and the god of wine—contemplates the effect a stranger has had on her psyche, she sees a shadow on her fireplace bricks and names it after the God of Theatre.  She uses this image to try to understand why her life has changed, when reality tells her nothing has changed at all.  In other words, she discovers the seminal effect of the muse.

Later, she will discover that her muse is much more than a subconscious aspect of her soul.  He’s real.  She will also realize that the muse is no magic genie, and by entering into a relationship with a muse, she loses the control she had over her life in exchange for…for what?

Bliss.  Desire fulfilled.  Seeing the world as she’s never seen it before.  Music, color, fragrance, touch—all sensations change under the dominion of the muse.  She turns over the burden of normalcy in exchange for euphoria.

Following the muse is taking a journey into the unknown.  It is a world of drama and uncertainty, where our spacial markers dissolve.  Following the muse is exhausting.  Frustrating.  Irreconcilable to our common sense.

But once you’ve tasted the sweet wine of your muse, you’ll never want to return to a predictable life.  You’ve been seduced.  Smitten.  

Writers ask this question to each other (and to themselves) all the time. I won't go over the standard answers, since you can already imagine what they are. I would, however, like to share mine.

Love.

How cheesy and cliche for my first blog. I'd sound more professional if I had a different answer.

But I don't. Love motivates me to write, and nothing else works. I don't mean an inherent love for writing. I've liked writing since I was a kid. Got into trouble in 8th grade math class for writing a novel instead of watching the teacher solve equations on the blackboard. But I don't have the natural stamina to write an entire book, market it, face rejection, rewriting, editing, and critical reviews. I don't love the process of writing that much. 

The key for me: I write about that someplace, that something, or that someone I love. Magic happens when a story contains all three. This happened as I wrote my book, Dionysus. After that experience, I decided this was the way for me to write. If I have enough love, I can write the book and do all the tasks associated with getting it out to the world. If not, I'll wait for a new love.