The Muse as Nag
Writing is hard. Writing during a pandemic, amidst social unrest, is even harder. That reluctant muse who occasionally visits during the best of times is really keeping her distance. I don’t blame her. The house is already crowded enough, with everyone either working or taking classes from home. Even when I sit outside on the patio, the fog comes from over the hill and settles directly on top of my brain. Ideas come and go. Nothing’s fully formed. It’s easier to just flip on the TV and watch the next episode of “The Office.”
Inevitably, though, the writing must get done. Why? Because not writing makes everything worse.
You know the feeling, right?
You haven’t written in a while and you look at the corner of your desk where you’ve stacked all those books on craft, or at the print-out of that manuscript you’ve been meaning to get back to, and you feel, well...bad. Really bad. And after enough days of feeling bad about not writing, something inside you finally says, “What’s up with you? Get to it, okay?”
And you know what? That’s her. That’s the reluctant muse. Only she’s not visiting in her usual creative genius form. Not this time. Instead, she’s visiting in the form of a nag.
And the nagging muse wants you to do one thing. Write. Pen and paper, tablet, computer, it doesn’t matter. Just get something down and do it soon. Now, even. Now would be a good time.
Why? Because the singular act of writing, even for a few minutes, can take you out of your head and put you into flow, that sacred place where you can be happiest.
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, the psychologist who recognized and named the concept of flow, realized that people in flow experience transformation of time, clarity, focus, balance, control, effortlessness, and ease. He outlined his theory in his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, where he wrote:
“The best moments in our lives are not the passive, receptive, relaxing times . . . The best moments usually occur if a person’s body or mind is stretched to its limits in a voluntary effort to accomplish something difficult and worthwhile” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990).
That single act of writing, even for a few minutes, can improve your well-being, creativity, and productivity.
That single act of writing, even for a few minutes, can lift that brain fog and put the pandemic in the closet for a while.
I know it sounds like snake oil, but I’m nagging you to give it a try.
