Musing On the Muse

 Time has again gotten away from me, but I am back with another nugget of creative wisdom. Well at least I hope it is wisdom. It should at least get your creative juices flowing as we talk about what some feel is the inherit conflict in priorities between Characters and Plot. Personally, I believe that the idea of conflict between these two components in your stories is a fallacy. The two actually work together to accentuate  the dramatic points of your story. Some people claim that Plot is most important, because a story is about something happening. Others claim that you can have a story if it showcases enough character development. In my mind, there is no need to chose between the two. A piece of writing that is strictly character based, where there is little to know action or change to the setting/environs is typically called a vignette. Prior to the 1990s, most dramatic television shows were vignettes, but for a different reason. You can also consider a story a vignette i...

 I have lost count of how many times people have said these words to me over the years as we talked about writing or game mastering or acting. Since it seems to come up a lot it is worth exploring. What is Inspiration and is it really all it is cracked up to be. There will be people on both sides of thus discussion. People that feel that "they can only create when they are inspired" and then the rest of us. Those of us with deadlines, whether self imposed or not, and need to simply get something on the page.  I actually think that most of us fall into the latter category because we don't have the luxury of waiting for inspiration. I'm firmly in the camp that inspiration is the cherry on the top of your work. It is dessert or a treat to enjoy when it happens. However, creativity is like any other muscle, it needs exercise. If you wait around for inspiration to strike you, that muscle will atrophy. It is far better to work those muscles on a regular basis and when you d...