On Facebook today, I mentioned how I was going to head to Starbucks to “wrestle some words out of my muse.” My friend Pol asked if that was really the kind of relationship I wanted to have with my muse. I then let inspiration guide me in describing my muse as less of a fragile cherub and more of a hard hitting thug. This all amused me very much.

It did get me to thinking about how my writing process has changed over the years, though.

It used to be that I’d sit in front of the computer and just sort of let the words roll out of me. I wouldn’t necessarily have a plan or an idea of what I was going to write. I might get some ideas of where I wanted to go after I started, but those were just guidelines. The experience was just like reading, only the words would appear as my hands and eyes made them appear.

I can still allow that type of writing to take me. That’s how my blog posts form, most of the time. I’ll have some inkling of an idea of a subject, but the form and message presents itself as I’m typing.

When I’m working on my novel or a short story, though, it doesn’t really work that well. I have to give myself a little more structure, and a little more thought about plot. When I let it just wander, it tends to wander into nonsense, or form into something I don’t like enough to finish.

The writing process these days very much is a matter of wrestling. I have to force myself to put my butt in the chair, my hands on the keyboard, and then move the story in a direction that is coherent.

I still get inspired, and it doesn’t always feel like work. Usually, the story idea itself is a matter of inspiration. There is still room for me to be surprised by what I’m writing, but only within the confines of the structure I build out of words. That construction is difficult, and it often makes me tense. Some days, I’m able to wrestle the muse down and get some good writing out of it. Other days, the muse defeats me, and chases me off to do something mindless, like a video game or a Star Trek marathon.