Muse Of The Day - Tumblr Posts

A Musing Mondays 🎐

I gonna start doing a Monday post based on what in the past week has amused me or been my muse. Could be a quote, could be a new perspective I gained, could be a neat rock that I found.

I think as creators it can be easy to forget that the things we experience in the now fuel our work too- not just our pasts. If you're feeling uninspired and unmotivated, if your 'muse' seems to have left you, that's when you probably need to step away and live a little.

This weeks a-muse-ment is in the neat rock category for sure 🤘

This weekend I visited Bryce National Park and went on a challenging but very rewarding hike where I took all these photos. It really got me thinking about environments ✨️ The Outlands in my WIP 7 Circles is largely desertscape, but there are soooo many geologic features you can find in a desert. Slot canyons! Hoodoos! Petrified dunes! Carved-in sandstone dwellings! I'm buzzing with thoughts of how to twine these in later in my story. Do any of yall have cool geological features in your stories?

@katenewmanwrites @smellyrottentrees @wyked-ao3 @lychhiker-writes @the-golden-comet

@tragedycoded @cowboybrunch @zackprincebooks @urbiggestnightmare-blog @quillswriting @dragoninatrenchcoat

A Musing Monday 🎐

Today I'm musing on movement vs lack of movement. Right now there's a lot of movement around me, and yet im feeling stuck. Immobile.

One of my partners is on a family vacation, a close friend of mine is moving, another friend started a new job. I know people finishing their book drafts and starting journeys to learn drawing and going back to school and marching up to businesses to ask for jobs.. it's amazing. Its breathtaking. Achingly so.

I feel petrified in comparison. Im having moments of movement- a little inspiration, a flash of bravery, and idea of things that could be. But it feels like an engine that rumbles with the start of something only to immediately fade back to stillness. Sometimes a lack of movement means peace. Not here.

We dont expect that stutter in our protagonists, we dont see it much in books and media. Is it because of the way it itches? The way it reminds us of headaches that keep us from sleeping while also dragging us into feeling sleepy? Perhaps its just not interesting to show someone putting forth surges of effort only for nothing to come of it. Perhaps its too scary. Too reminiscent of the futality we run from.

This musing doesn't have a pretty bow on it, no positive note to soften- but I invite you to ponder on it. How does it sit in your chest? How are you defying it or being defined by it? How would you write about it? How can a protagonist be defined by the way they can't move when they're trying to?

A Musing Monday 🎐

Today I'm musing about extradimensional spaces! Like Mary Poppin's bag, or 'eatery that connects to an isekai' anime, or your mind, even.

I do think the mind is a type of extradimensional space. We fit the essence of so many places and moments and people into the folds of our memory, contained in the little box that is our skulls. We imagine worlds, we dream entirely separate lifetimes. It's wild, and amazing, and a little terrifying.

Occasionally I think about how the entire world around me is MY world- in that my only access to reality is through my own interpretations, experiences, and the senses that link to my brain, all of which may or may not be close to the truth of reality. When I die one day, my world dies too- not one creature on earth will live in the same world that I knew due to my relationship with everything perceivable to me.

Before I get TOO existential here though (or maybe I'm getting more existential)- think of what that means for writers! We are masons crafting gateways to extradimensional spaces. Through what we do, people can visit the pocket dimensions of OUR minds, dimensions that have the possibility to continue existing long after the mind/wold that created it expires. And because everyone perceives things through their own lens, writing one story and sharing it creates the potential for countless alternate dimensions; every soul that reads your work will carry their own personal version of it in their mind. If you have a hit count or something similar on your work, THAT'S how many dimensions you've created, at least.

Not only that, but when someone reads what you've written, THEIR world alters. It may be slight, your work or your post might provide a momentary reprieve from the part of their world they're avoiding or decompressing from (which is still a very important thing), or it may give them an idea of their own, it may motivate them to make one choice over another choice, it may alter the very way they think and interact with their family, their partners, themselves. You very well may alter the fabric of what a person is, the dimension of their mind warping with the way it interacts with your dimension.

Never forget that as a writer, or any creator of art for that matter, you are a world-builder, a world-shatterer, a world-repairer; a powerful and magical being that may alter the course of history. Writing is magic, and it's sorcery, and I desperately hope even the small unconfident blogs on here recognize that power.

Tagging a bunch of cool writers: @cowboybrunch @the-golden-comet @lychhiker-writes @wyked-ao3 @rotting-moon-writes

@saturnine-saturneight @asablehart @tragedycoded @autism-purgatory @marlowethelibrarian

If I didn't tag you you're still super cool! The world of my brain is just made of swiss cheese and glitches a lot 🫠💕

@dragoninatrenchcoat @words-after-midnight @sableglass @gioiaalbanoart @illarian-rambling

@badscientist @officialauthorofanotherworld

Today i'm thinking about mold, like emotionally. The feeling of moldiness vs feeling nourished and refreshed.

If you've struggled with depression & have worked at allieving it (✋️), you might relate to how unfair it is that many of the things you DO NOT WANT to do while depressed alleviate the depression. 🔀

Depression wants me to isolate, but reaching out and connecting to someone helps. 🫂 Depression doesn't want me to leave bed much less the house, but standing barefoot in my front yard for five minutes eases something in me 🌾☀️. Depression wants me to forsake myself, but damn if everything isn't easier after a long shower and a meal.🧼🍜

It almost feels like depression is a parasitic mold man that doesn't want to be eliminated and has the ability to plant strong 'don't wanna' messages into your gourd 🚫. If you stay alone and miserable the mold can really settle into your body and grow- it even tries convincing you the depresso mold is a dangerous substance like real mold is and that if you go for help you'll just hurt people.

Its so hard to not listen to my scummy little mold man! SO HARD (😏). And he has gremlin powers where if you feed the mold after midnight (or whatever 'past bedtime' is) he gets incredibly worse.

So im celebrating myself (he hates that) and listing some fuck-off-mold-guy activities I've done the past few days 💪

☀️ I made myself a beautiful ratatouille and a plum cookie cobbler

☀️ I asked my partner for back rubs

☀️ I sat in a patch of grass by the road and found a swirly rock

☀️ Watched a goose 🪿

☀️ Opened some windows and curtains and vacuumed

☀️ Redyed my hair (still green lmao 💚)

☀️ Had two friends over to share a meal and bark at Paul Hollywood

☀️ Complimented and flirted with my partner until they blushed and squeaked

☀️ Listened to Carbon Leaf in a hammock with a drink in my hand

☀️ Did paperwork I didnt want to do and then loudly congradulated myself for completing it

Like, I still hate the trend of "Oh you're depressed? You should just __". The use of 'just' is so diminishing, its so dismissive of how hard it is and how individual the depression is. Sure, I have a list of things I did lately that helped me, but im not 'cured', and I know as winter comes itll get harder and Ill need my therapist even more. It can be true at the same time that I've found some things that help me through, make the mold recede, and are worth congradulating myself over. 😊

I hope you all find some nourishment and refreshment as well ✨️

Monday taglist: @gioiaalbanoart (hmu to be +/-)