Musings of a Chocoholic Romance Author: Muses

Sunday, September 09, 2007

Muses

Writers often blame their writing blocks or writing sprees on "The Muse," and I'll admit, I'm guilty of same. I remember being fascinated with the Muses way back in junior high and high school, when we studied Greek mythology, so I must laugh at myself these days when I play the blame game, with my Muse being the Blamee in Chief.

Here's a little bit of information about the Muses, quoted directly from Wikipedia (I figured maybe we should know a little bit more about the entities we like to blame or praise for our writing blocks or writing sprees):

"The canonical nine Muses, with their fields of patronage, as established since the Renaissance, are:

Calliope (Chief of the muses and muse of epic or heroic poetry)
Clio (muse of history)
Erato (muse of love or erotic poetry, lyrics, and marriage songs)
Euterpe (muse of music and lyric poetry)
Melpomene (muse of tragedy)
Polyhymnia or Polymnia (muse of sacred song, oratory, lyric, singing and rhetoric)
Terpsichore (muse of choral song and dance)
Thalia (muse of comedy and bucolic poetry)
Urania (muse of astronomy)"

Encyclopedia Mythica article (brief, yet informative).

For a bit of fun, take the blogthings "What Muse Are You" quiz below, and share with us which Muse you are!

Your Inner Muse is Thalia

You are most like this playful muse of comedy.
Life is all about laughter to you, and you're a natural comic.
You make people laugh until their sides split.
And you're always up for some play time!

What Muse Are You?

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Quotes About Writing

For your born writer, nothing is so healing as the realization that he has come upon the right word. ~Catherine Drinker Bowen

Forget all the rules. Forget about being published. Write for yourself and celebrate writing. ~Melinda Haynes

My purpose is to entertain myself first and other people secondly. ~John D. MacDonald

Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else. ~Gloria Steinem

A writer is a person for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people. ~Thomas Mann

Easy reading is damned hard writing. ~Anonymous

We do not write because we want to; we write because we have to. ~Somerset Maugham

Writing a novel is like driving a car at night. You can only see as far as your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way. ~E. L. Doctorow

The secret of becoming a writer is to write, write and keep on writing. ~Ken MacLeod\

Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of, but do it in private and wash your hands afterwards. ~Robert A. Heinlein

Never throw up on an editor. ~Ellen Datlow

If you don't have the time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write. ~Stephen King

There are no rules in writing. There are useful principles. Throw them away when they're not useful. But always know what you're throwing away. ~Will Shetterly

Books are never finished, They are merely abandoned. ~Oscar Wilde

You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club. ~Jack London

If you wait for inspiration, you're not a writer, but a waiter. ~Anonymous

We are all apprentices in a craft where no one ever becomes a master. ~Ernest Hemingway

You never learn how to write a novel. You just learn how to write the novel that you're writing. ~Gene Wolfe