In your life as a muse-driven writer, there’s a great deal of help and gratification, not to mention pure pleasure, to be gained from reading the accounts of other artists who have consciously experienced their creativity to some degree as an autonomous force, entity, or process. Equally valuable are statements of general creative principles that have been abstracted from such accounts. Learning the various ways in which writers have conceived, related to, and referred to their inner collaborators can go a long way toward helping you to clarify your relationship with your own muse or genius. And of course such statements often shade into speculations about the general meaning and purpose of human life, both individually and collectively — a subject that’s always worth considering.
You’ll find quotes to this effect scattered throughout the library of articles housed here at Demon Muse. Right now, to reinforce the point, here are a few more. By way of a disclaimer, please note that not all of the individuals quoted below make explicit mention of the muse, daimon, or genius. Some of them might well quibble with the use of such terminology. But all talk about the ins and outs, both practical and philosophical, of living and working with the realization that creativity comes to us as a seemingly autonomous force that demands an attitude not of control, but of relationship and respect. Read the rest of this entry »
