Thirteen Thursday #13
AKA: Ode to the Muse
1. I’m still waiting for the Muse to write me a blank check.
2. I once described the Muses as “shy as a wallflowers” and “as fickle as a cats already fed.”
3. I can write without the Muse, but it’s like watering my garden with a hose in the summer when it really needs a
soaking rain
4. I have a poem called “Lost: The Muse” that starts: Loyal but shy… last seen on Friday… and ends with…She’s never been married…she talks in her sleep…call 745-2534 if you know where she is. Someone actually called me on the phone after reading that poem to try and help me out with my problem.
5. The name of my first poetry collection in which the above poem and others appears is called “Muses Like Moonlight.” If ever I’m signing a copy for someone, I like to sign, “May the Muses be with You.”
6. My thesaurus lists “Calliope, Clio (God)” as alternative words for the Muse.
7. Does that mean that art is a religion?
8. The name of the monthly community newsletter I co-edit is called “A Museletter.” It was inspired by a room at the Wise Woman Center in New York, called the “Amusing Muse Museum” which was plastered with postcards displaying images of women all over the walls. I also like the play on the word “newsletter.”
9. Poet, C.K. Williams once said in an interview, “Every poem has a music. And until it has that, it’s not a poem. It’s just information or data floating around on your desk.” I agree, but what he calls the “music,” I call the Muse.
10. Sometimes I feel like a slave to the Muse. I had a poem published in Wemoon years ago where the last line read “I’m a night stenographer hired by the muse to take down the moon’s business.”
11. I was talking to my friend Mara on the phone yesterday about hypergraphia, which is defined by an online medical dictionary as: The driving compulsion to write; the overwhelming urge to write. Hypergraphia may compel someone to keep a voluminous journal, to jot off frequent letters to the editor, to write on toilet paper if nothing else is available, and perhaps even to compile a dictionary. It is known to be associated with temporal lobe disorder, such as epilepsy. Mara and I both think we lean towards having a degree of this disorder, and we both have had symptoms associated with temporal lobe disorder, as well as “dyscalculia.” Mara said, “It’s the one disorder no one wants to get rid of. Who wants the alternative, writer’s block?
12. This is my 13th Thirteen Thursday. I like to imagine some magic power in that and that 13 is the Muse’s favorite number.
13. I guess I’m not the only one who regularly pays homage to the Muse. Have you noticed how many blogs on my sidebar have the name Muse in their titles?
Leanne at “Artist by Nature” is the Muse behind Thursday 13. Go visit her for the 13 Thursday inspiration.
January 19th, 2006 9:30 am
Thirteen thirteens, there’s definitely something magical going on! My 13 are up!
January 19th, 2006 9:33 am
As always…a wonderful list! I look forward to reading your 13’s…and wonder what picture you’ll have to go with it. You’re so creative. I should thank your muse…could I get a blank check, too?
I love that someone called you after reading “Lost: The Muse” Does it get any better than that?!
I hope we can continue the Thursday Thirteen on our own. I’ll miss it if it ends for good.
Thanks for visiting me!
January 19th, 2006 10:38 am
13 T13…and I hope we do not stop. I specially liked your nr. 3, I feel like that very often. Learned a new word :Hypergraphia. Does one have hypographia when the Muse is gone and there is no inspiration whatsoever? Thanks for visiting my T13
January 19th, 2006 11:10 am
Thanks for your a-musing thoughts. Maybe music really is Muse-ic!
January 19th, 2006 12:39 pm
I had no idea I had a writing disorder. I need a pill or vitamin for that one. LOL!
That phone number thing was interesting–in that piece.
January 19th, 2006 1:05 pm
One of our cat friends, Miss Peanut, has had the official title of “mews” in our household for quite a few years now.
January 19th, 2006 1:41 pm
WOW! Very nice list. Lots of stuff to ponder! 🙂
January 19th, 2006 3:59 pm
13 is very powerful. Look how many people to TT.
I’m Up!
January 19th, 2006 9:19 pm
Hello from a fellow thirteener and fellow writer!
(And they say 13 is unlucky.)
January 19th, 2006 11:12 pm
I always enjoy your 13 Thursdays. I never thought much about having a muse until I started blogging. Now, I do recognize this desire to write about something.. but I don’t think it is exactly a muse muse. I never heard that term, hypergraphia before. Maybe I unknowingly have a little bit of that 🙂
January 20th, 2006 8:18 am
“I’m a night stenographer hired by the muse to take down the moon’s business”
I love this line to pieces.
January 20th, 2006 8:21 am
Love #3! I have never done the Thurs. 13 – seemed like a lot of trouble to think up 13 things every week, but I really do enjoy reading others’.
Michele sent me today!
January 20th, 2006 10:28 am
I love the quote about the muse and the moon. If it is ok, I might use it with one of my photos of the moon. It fits so well.
As an unabashed “cat lady”, I also really like the “already fed cat” idea although the fickle one around here is our dog Max. He has his supper and with a tummy tight as a tic from that, then stands at the back door and whines. He occasionally manages to get my dad to feed him again with Dad saying, “Well, Max told me he hadn’t been fed yet.” My response, “He lied.” Perhaps dogs and cats are both fickle in their own ways. LOL.
January 20th, 2006 2:41 pm
745-2534 ??? Did you do that on purpose? Or was it combined in error? Not that I would want to post my phone number on a blog…..
Just wondering!
Love ya lots!
I love blogging now – I’m addicted. I’m starting mine this weekend!
January 20th, 2006 9:04 pm
Love the photo!
Great list you have about “the muse”. 🙂
Happy weekend!
January 21st, 2006 10:16 am
Does that mean that art is a religion?
Was this ever in doubt? To my way of thinking, art is a religion. One I’m grateful to believe in, heart, mind and soul.
January 22nd, 2006 12:02 am
I love #3! I can really tell when I’m “in the zone” and when I’m not — when I’m not I feel as though my writing is flat and I’m just pushing my characters around on the page. When the Muse is with me they take over the joint. When I’m swept up in #10 the analogy I use is The Red Shoes: can’t take ’em off, just got to keep on dancin’!