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No Muse Is Good Muse

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Jan 132011

No Muse Is Good Muse

So it’s another one of these columns where I will speak less about the specifics of SEO writing then the approach I think best suits the working writer, or the one who wants to work. Whatever it is you’re doing, SEO work (writing copy with specific keywords for search engines) editing or if you’re lucky enough to make fiction writing your main gig, I think it behooves a writer to wait for his or her muse.

A muse, if one exists (and I have a hard time believing in the concept) ain’t gonna put food on your table. If you are a writer, write. Stop blogging about writing, stop tweeting or twatting about it, stop professing to people that you write and you have the great American novel on your hard drive awaiting completion. Please do me, your family, friends and fellow writers a favor…just fucking write!

If you have a job that will pay you to move those stubby little digits across a computer keyboard and the job is paying you what you feel is a honest wage, then you best get on the job and start writing, cause the worst thing to be is a writer waiting for inspiration while money passes you by. Be inspired all you want, feel the vibe and the verve and the shuck and jive, stand on your head if you have to, but one need remember this writing thang we do, especially if one is writing stuff like SEO copy, is a job. Negotiate a good pay, stay off your twitter-really nobody cares how many followers you have, it doesn’t give your meaningless existence any more weight-and write.

The only way I ever got the jobs I did or the one I presently have is by working. I either worked directly to solicit the job, or my name was given to someone from work I did previously, or what little rep. I do happen to have I got by…yes, say it out loud with me kids….by working writing!

The nuts and bolts of SEO writing I can sum up for you right here, right now…either find or have your employer give you the keywords he or she want to get into the copy, write clear and concise copy to your employers specification, put those keywords in the copy judicously, have the copy make sense and make sure to stay on your point in the words allotted. Don’t stuff keywords by keeping the ratio pretty well even through-ut your paragraphs and you’re mostly there.

But none of the paragraph above will mean doodly unless you…that’s right, say it with me again kids…unless you write. Unless you work. Unless you get up off your ass (or sit down on it), turn off the PDA, close the Facebook account-believe me if you log on an hour from now you’re not going have missed a blessed thing-and welcome the muse called commerce and do your job. You’re a writer right? Writers right. If you think for a millisecond that what you do is really all that more important than anyone else’s job, that you are on the fast track to inspiration because you do something ‘creative’, that you’re any more special then the dude that picks up your garbage, then do me a favor, go on your Twitter account and tell all your friends. They believe they are just as special

For the rest of us slobs, I say, keep writing.

Bless me Father I must have sinned because my muse has left me. As pence I have brought out the hair shirt and the floggers.

Oceania 5 Responses »

May 062010

You would think that self-torture and supreme penance would be something out of the dark ages. But I see it all the time, the guilt and suffering, the excuses and condemnation.

Writers do it all the time, they hit this wall where they swear they will never create another piece again. Then as an offering of proof they halfheartedly try or they try with every once of determination to write something worth reading. The results are usually awful.

That usually sets off curses to the heavens, self inflicted tortures and resignation that usually ends with tears for a lost muse.

Poor Muse she is often lost!

I encountered this from a writer I work with. I gave him an assignment and he didn’t make deadline. We pushed it back and again he didn’t have anything to show me. Finally I received a lengthy email on how awful his circumstances were, how he couldn’t find the words, how his muse was gone and how i should give up on him… but if i didn’t give up on him if I truly believed it was just a phase he vowed that he would work harder and produce what was needed. He only ask that I give him time. Time to find his muse.

At first I felt sorry for his circumstances but as each sentence droned on I realized that no matter how much I sympathized he felt sorrier for himself and with this sorrow came great guilt and with this guilt an even greater need to punish himself…. but lastly there was a need for him to feel justified for not writing because he felt this remorse.

It was rather twisted and well, boring.

So I took the bulls by the horn and wrote back.
“I am not your friend. I am your editor and publisher and you were given an assignment. I don’t care if the house burnt down or if your wife ran away with the mail main. I don’t care if you have to work 2 jobs. Do the assignment and keep the sympathy stories for your mother.

Then I told him as I would tell any creative, that the only way to get through a writers block is to WRITE!
You’ve heard the quote attributed to Oliver Stone “Writing = ass in chair”.

It doesn’t matter if it is good or bad or in between, just write.

So put away the hairshirt. You want to beat something up hit the keyboard hard. Create a war scene or a fight between lovers. Take a stake and drive through your boss’ heart.

Then after you get all that self loathing, frustration, envy out on the screen… you’ll find your muse.

Like the little lost sheep she will be waging her tail behind her.

~Oceania