On writing and the soul of murder

Or: How I learned to stop worrying and love the Demon.

I read a funny article this morning by a writer who thinks of his resistance to creativity as Brenda, the earthy, red-lipped, fishnet-stocking-clad Anti-Muse.

Well, my anti-muse isn’t quite so much eye candy but she’s definitely from the same jar. I think of her Simone, Brenda’s darker, more neurotic distant cousin.

Simone has messy hair, wears too much black and smells of faintly of brimstone. She doesn’t smile much and thinks constantly.

She has been known to scare away my muse with a single, scathing glance.

Simone’s favorite past-time is engaging me in long, circular, unenlightening discussions about Art, Life, My Navel, and so on.

When she can’t appeal to my mind, she gets physical. Aren’t I hungry? Or, if I just ate, Wouldn’t tea be nice? Or Doesn’t a walk sound good? After all, I’ve been sitting here in this very same chair for at least five minutes. That can’t be good for my back.

And finally, when these things fail and I am dangerously close to writing, Simone sits down at the piano and plays a few bars of The Insecurity Rag. Pretty soon I’m perched beside her on the bench, warbling along like a gutless chanteuse.

One¹ would be tempted to say that Simone is not just an anti-muse, but truly a demon from the ninth circle of hell.

Which ain’t bad at all, according to Ray Bradbury, who’s made a career out of dancing with the devil.

If you must write of assassinations, rapes and Ophelia suicides, speak the speech, I pray thee, poetry in your breath, metaphors on your tongue. Remember how glad Iago was to think on Othello’s fall. How, with smiles, Hamlet prepared his uncle’s death.

Shakespeare and my Demon schooled me so: Be not afraid of happiness. It is often the soul of murder.²

Since my story has, in fact, assassinations, rapes, suicides and murder, I’d say Simone and I could be very happy there together.

Technorati Tags: Ray Bradbury, writing, creativity

1. OK, I. [↩]
2. From “My Demon, Not Afraid Of Happiness, in Bradbury Speaks: Too Soon from the Cave, Too Far from the Stars, essays by Ray Bradbury. [↩]