Notes From an Amateur Writer #17 - Dancing With My Muse

This is day 21 for me in @dragosroua's 30 day writing challenge. Today I am continuing with the Notes From an Amateur Writer series, with the 17th installment.

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DANCING WITH MY MUSE

2:14am. I should be sleeping. Normal people would be asleep right now.

"You're not normal. You're a writer." Who speaks? I turn around and observe my room, from my writing desk. "See, you haven't even gone to bed yet. You're still mulling over ideas. You're still reading other people's work. Soaking up the endless inspiration and depth of ideas. Not normal at all." The voice was quiet, not at all accusatory, unlike the words. Like an angel speaking, but filtered through my inner critic. And I know that voice, I know it well.

"Where have you been?" I ask her.

"I have been back here, lurking and drifting through the shadows. Wandering around these hidden places at the back of your mind. There is a lot back here. Have you ever looked? Fields of material back here. Endless ideas ready for harvest. You should look inward sometime. Further inwards than you normally do." My Muse has returned from god knows where. She was wandering around in my inner thoughts and buried hopes and dreams. Perhaps even rummaging through my discarded fears. I had put them out for the bin man to take away. I hope she doesn't see them. She'll remind me about them, if she sees them.

"Come and dance with me," she says.

"You know I can't dance."

"Of course I know that silly, but we should skip through these fields and smell the aroma's, before death sweeps through and takes it all away." She takes my hand and guides me past all the coloured rays of Earth's inner life, out to the far side where the forest joins the sky. "See that," she says pointing to the high branches.

"Yes, what about it?"

"I hid something for you up there. On the farthest branch, just before it pierces the blue beyond."

"Why would you hide it up there?" It was a rhetorical question. My Muse hides things where ever she pleases. All over the place usually. But I don't normally get fair warning of it's location.

"There's someone I want you to meet."

"Up there?" I look but there is no one there. How tall is this tree? And why would someone be all the way up there? I study this giant statue of life's beauty standing in front of me. Continually observing it wondering how I could possibly reach up there.

"Yes up there," she said with much laughter in her voice, echoing out from between the words. "That's where the best view is." Taking my hand she leads me twirling and gliding in big swoops of joyous movement. Arm in arm as we rise to the great heights that had previously stood over us. "Your dancing is getting better," she said, with a cheeky grin. And her lying is improving also.

There is a Tree Pixie, a beautiful little forest creature there to greet us as we land on the highest branch. With wings made of gold dust, and the wildest hair I had ever seen. Both lush and forbidding all at the same time. I want to stroke her mane but I don't know if I will get my hand back. In the end I just stare.

"Follow her," my Muse instructs me. Then she is gone, vanished into the recesses of my inner world.

The Tree Pixie leads me into a hollow in the tree's trunk. Into her world. "I have a story for you," she says. "Lots of stories grow in these forests. You should really visit more often."

"I'm sorry," I tell her. And I am, truly. I don't ever want to upset a Tree Pixie. "I didn't know this place existed."

"That is strange," she says. "All of this is your world. Why wouldn't you know it exists?" She leads me further into the tree, deep into it's core. I have lost the sense that I am even inside a tree. It's like a new world in here. Magical and mysterious. "See that garden," she says pointing to a lush stretch of greenery in the distance.

"Yes."

"That is where she is. Go and be with her." With who? The Tree Pixie doesn't tell me any more. And she too vanishes, leaving me in the midst of a tree, in the midst of my inner world, hidden in the dark places. On my way to a garden, to meet a girl who dwells within it. I suppose these are the sorts of things that happen at 2:14am when you are wandering around in other people world's of creativity instead of sleeping.

THE GARDEN OF STOLEN DREAMS. I see the sign written large above the entrance. I enter in and wander slowly down the path. Is she here somewhere? Is she hiding from me? I talk about her like I know her. Who is this girl?

"Have you come to help me get them all back?" She is beautiful, like a golden child of God. What is she doing hiding back here in the depths of my subsconsious?

"Get what back?"

"My dreams," she tells me.

"Who took them?"

"The demons who dress like the night and make small talk with the echoes in my head."

"Where are those demons now? How do I find them?"

She points to the edge of the garden, where the shadows dance with the trees in the moonlight. "They hide over there."

"Okay," I say, but I have no idea what to do.

"Thank you," she kisses me on the cheek, her lips implanting a magical seed that grows into the tree of reassurance within my soul. I feel a strength and intention that I have not felt before. "But first you need to rest. You have a big adventure coming your way."

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All images used with permission, and sourced from Unsplash.com.

Thank you for taking the time to read this. If you liked it then please like, comment, and follow.

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Notes From an Amateur Writer blog series:

Notes From an Amateur Writer #1 - The Search For Inspiration
Notes From an Amateur Writer #2 - A Call to Action: Interacting With the World Outside of Me
Notes From an Amateur Writer #3 - Facing the Challenge
Notes From an Amateur Writer #4 - The Soundtrack to Grief and Loss
Notes From an Amateur Writer #5 - Music as a Catalyst for Imagination: Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing
Notes From an Amateur Writer #6 - The Stories All Around Us
Notes From an Amateur Writer #7 - Introducing Nomad [A Cyberpunk Mystery in the Making]
Notes From an Amateur Writer #8 - The House at the Edge of the World
Notes From an Amateur Writer #9 - Making Peace With My Kindle
Notes From an Amateur Writer #10 - Learning the Craft of Story Structure
Notes From an Amateur Writer #11 - Adults Sit at the Big Table, Children Sit at the Small Table
Notes From an Amateur Writer #12 - The Time I Won a Lego Competition
Notes From an Amateur Writer #13 - Learning to Fly
Notes From an Amateur Writer #14 - The Tucker 48: Face to Face With a Million Dollar Vehicle
Notes From an Amateur Writer #15 - When the Levee Breaks: A Story in Song and Words
Notes From an Amateur Writer #16 - Monty Python, Keanu Reeves, and My Case of Invisibility

Short Fiction:

Bang Bang You're Dead
I Have No Name and I Must Scream
The Last Book Store
The Judge
The Man In The Mirror
The End of the World [Part 1] [Part 2]