Here's the weird deal. The answer is no to the original 'muse' question as you meant it, as when I'm writing a story I don't hear it dictated or the like, it's on the order of, as mentioned above, the story using me to tell itself. Almost always I have to 'percolate' the story elsewhere (usually while driving) and get bits and pieces, phrases and lines that meld into something else when I sit down to type and I sometimes don't even know where it's going until it's gotten there.
What I *do* have is the characters, as separate entities outside myself, interacting with me in random situations. Gojyo sticks his feet out the window while I drive and makes comments on all the girls we pass. Naoe gives me his opinion of the shoppers in a tedious line at Walmart. Eclipse distracts me by whispering the spells he'd like to unleash when I get an unusually idiotic call at work. Don't get me wrong, I don't truly see them as solid presences, but I do feel them, and their words and reactions are entirely their own. If you want to know how Sanzo keeps me from going postal in traffic, for example, let me know. This truly isn't as psychotic as it sounds. So in that sense, I have to say they're entities separate from me, and by interacting with them I can write them when the time comes. Fiction by way of Stanislavsky as it were.
What I do claim is what I view as my true muse. Music.
Music, as an entity and force outside myself, draws a certain scene or detail or... *something* from within and the story elements sort of fall into place around it. It evokes a mood within me that matches the mood the story intends to evoke, and puts me into that 'trance', for lack of a better word, where the story flows through and out of me. So in that sense, yes, I have a muse, though not a personified one.
That being said, I will own to the fact that it was only a few days ago I said something like "Gojyo insisted I write this story, and I had the opening bits, then I realized it wasn't over, he made me think about the next morning, and just when I didn't know where to go Sanzo strolled up and dropped the ending in my lap." Which is true in a more metaphorical sense than a literal one but still. In an 'Ben Kenobi' sense it was true, as I didn't think "How would he react here" but simply his line existed in my head as soon as I needed it, without my conscious effort.
::shrugs:: Somehow I think I've not answered the question, and run in a purely egotistical direction. I'll be fascinated to see the continuance of this.
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What I *do* have is the characters, as separate entities outside myself, interacting with me in random situations. Gojyo sticks his feet out the window while I drive and makes comments on all the girls we pass. Naoe gives me his opinion of the shoppers in a tedious line at Walmart. Eclipse distracts me by whispering the spells he'd like to unleash when I get an unusually idiotic call at work. Don't get me wrong, I don't truly see them as solid presences, but I do feel them, and their words and reactions are entirely their own. If you want to know how Sanzo keeps me from going postal in traffic, for example, let me know. This truly isn't as psychotic as it sounds. So in that sense, I have to say they're entities separate from me, and by interacting with them I can write them when the time comes. Fiction by way of Stanislavsky as it were.
What I do claim is what I view as my true muse. Music.
Music, as an entity and force outside myself, draws a certain scene or detail or... *something* from within and the story elements sort of fall into place around it. It evokes a mood within me that matches the mood the story intends to evoke, and puts me into that 'trance', for lack of a better word, where the story flows through and out of me. So in that sense, yes, I have a muse, though not a personified one.
That being said, I will own to the fact that it was only a few days ago I said something like "Gojyo insisted I write this story, and I had the opening bits, then I realized it wasn't over, he made me think about the next morning, and just when I didn't know where to go Sanzo strolled up and dropped the ending in my lap." Which is true in a more metaphorical sense than a literal one but still. In an 'Ben Kenobi' sense it was true, as I didn't think "How would he react here" but simply his line existed in my head as soon as I needed it, without my conscious effort.
::shrugs:: Somehow I think I've not answered the question, and run in a purely egotistical direction. I'll be fascinated to see the continuance of this.