The following is an excerpt from the greatly expanded, new edition of my classic book for writers, The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write
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When did the call first come? When did you know, as clearly as you know your face, that you had to write? When did you know that an imperative deeper than any you have known was crying out for you to express it in words? When did you know?
How long has it been? How long has it been since you heard that voice? How long until you acted? Have you acted? Or have you fled?
Whatever or whichever, the time is now to set pen to paper. You know it. You know it as surely and truly as you know that face in the mirror. It is the face that calls you to write. For you are your Muse, if you allow that to be...if you allow yourself to listen.
You listened, you say, and here you are: pen poised over a sea of nothingness, wondering where that ocean of stories is. Wonder no longer. That ocean resides in the inkwell of your pen. It resides in the hard drive of your computer. It resides on a tiny chip in your tablet or smartphone. The story and stories you have been called to write exist already.
“Wait,” I hear you say. “If they exist, why must I write them? If they exist, they have already been told. I’m done.”
Would that it were that simple.
Those stories exist in another realm. The realm of dreams...the realm of fancy...another dimension somewhere beyond the three we know. Beyond the fourth of time as well. Somewhere beyond earth and sky, in that fantastical place where everything is possible, where miracles occur with each breath: That’s where your story exists. ...
But it’s the act of setting it to the page, of letting one word follow the next and then the next and then the next, that makes it real, that “publishes” it.
That’s right: The act of publishing is an act of making public. When you take your stories, those stories that have an existence only in your heart, an existence even your brain-mind may not see, when you take them and draw out the letters, stretch those letters into words and those words into sentences and paragraphs, magic happens. You take something that exists only in the airwaves, like a radio signal that broadcasts at a frequency not normally audible by the human ear, not normally picked up by the most sophisticated audio equipment. You take that signal, which is your story, and translate it into a frequency that is audible. In doing that, you give it — and yourself — a new kind of life. A life in the public realm. A place on the radio dial of your life.
Perhaps you don’t seek to have your work published in a conventional sense. Perhaps you do. At this moment, it doesn’t matter. At this moment, all that matters is answering that call to write. All that matters is tuning in to that frequency, that normally inaudible signal, the one on which your Muse alone broadcasts, tuning in to it and taking down everything you hear. Everything. Without judgment. Without question. Without second-guessing. Without censoring.
It is for you to tune in with the radio dial of your heart and turn what already exists in the air around you (just as radio signals exist in the air around you) into something physical. Something you can touch. Something you can hold. Something you can read. In doing that, you are giving it a life it would not otherwise have.
If nothing happens beyond that, you will still have accomplished a miracle. Even if no one else sees it or reads it, it has been published. It has been given a physical life it never had before. And just as every action in the universe has an impact on every being in that universe, or so our quantum scientists would have us believe, your words made manifest will have their effect.
If you do move from that point to publication, that’s a bonus. But that’s not our starting point. Our starting point is you. You and your Muse. You and your stories. You and the word.
Adapted from The Voice of the Muse: Answering the Call to Write
© 2008, 2014, 2020 Mark David Gerson