when the Muse keeps quiet

One of the things I love about blogging is the great bloggers…all kinds of people, all over the world, young and old (is that politically correct?) and all political and religious persuasions.   I like that.   How boring life would be if we never got out of our particular little niche.     I DO care about all my … uh…blogging acquaintances…and their opinions and points of view…even the ones that don’t think like I do.   That’s OK, feel free to say what ya want and I’ll deal with it.    My best friends usually don’t agree with me on everything…some don’t agree on anything…

Blogging is fun because there aren’t many rules, and when it isn’t fun there is always the unfollow button.

This post is supposed to be about My Muse.    She stays out of the way, mostly, and pops out with a brainstorm of an idea, or nags me to comment on World Affairs, or Cats, or  to expound on my opinions or ideas.       Right from the beginning I established my blog as “Eclectic” in nature.   That means I am right on topic no matter what my subject of the day happens to be.

Some days I publish three or four posts, which may deal with anything or everything.   Maybe I’ll write about my childhood, playing mumblety-peg with my brother, or learning to read, or skipping through an airport on my way to…wherever.    I am a Historian by education, and sometimes write about a topic dear to my heart—Aztec flower wars, the view from the top of an ancient pyramid in the Yucatan Jungle, the art work of Diego Rivera, slavery in the Caribbean, miscellaneous wars…obscene houses of worship with walls painted in real Gold.

Other days something more mundane, like expounding on the coming election…or discussing the Soviet Union and why I really love watching James Bond movies…or maybe even a commentary about the various James Bond actors.

Poetry is a form of writing which I only very recently discovered.  Oh sure, I had creative writing in English classes here and there, copied Edgar Allen Poe’s The Raven into notebooks along with some Shakespeare, and a selection of my early poetry, which remains in my notebooks, and I sit and read occasionally to marvel at my flowing words and flowery handwriting.   All that with a real ink-pen…a fountain pen which was filled with real ink.

Last year I participated in a WordPress Poetry Writing class.  I loved it…learning new forms which I had not really considered before, like Haiku, Villanelle, limericks, and my favorite Free-Form Poetry.   Which to me means nice words that fit nicely together to form rhyme and prose lines  that are palpable to the ear and lend themselves to foot-tapping and rhythym.

The poetry forms are fascinating.   The act of rhyming, and counting syllables to achieve a certain “beat” to the poem…meter, actually.     Instead of being tedious, as it might be to physically craft a poem following specific rules in a Freshman poetry-writing class, I find the mechanics of Poetry to be interesting, educational, and instructive.

When my Muse seems to be taking a day off, and I want to write a poem, I like to scribble a line and then build on it, in the rough draft using words that will not necessarily make it to the final rhyme.   I hasten to say that I have finally learned that poems do not have to necessarily rhyme…as in the Cat in the Hat being true blue…that kind of rhyme.

Sometimes these methods pay off in producing a quick and succinct poem, but other times it is months that a “rough draft” languishes in the notebook, occasionally having an update that consists of a tweke here and there, polishing a word, scratching it out.   Some efforts never work for me,   especially  forced or manufactured lines of poetry that just stink…or are stupid.

Writing prose articles is different.  I won’t bore everybody with long lists of examples of such posts.       I try hard to avoid  writing that tends to be presumptious…self-serving…holier-than-thou…or in lecture mode.    Above all my goal is to entertain and inform, and to interact with other bloggers who have similar interests or common experiences.