Writers write?

Writers write! Writers write. Writers write? I haven’t written anything for almost a month now. I could list all the “reasons” I haven’t written, but the important thing isn’t why, just that I haven’t.  Since writers write and I haven’t I don’t think I can call myself a writer anymore. Maybe I should call myself a publisher, since I have published. That however would create a whole new set of baggage.

I haven’t felt inspired, I haven’t heard the voices, and I haven’t written. Writers write, they don’t just sit around waiting for their muse.  They don’t just wait for the inspiration, they write. If we waited for the muse and only wrote when we were inspired we’d be called musers not writers.

Don’t get me wrong the spark of inspiration, the divine spark, is a rush, but it’s not the writer. Writers have a deal with inspiration, we write, and every so often the muse pops in a knocks us on our ass. The muse comes in and tells us stories, and we transcribe them. Maybe inspired writers are just transcriptionists for the gods.

Maybe inspired writers are simple tools for the divine to put words and lyrics and songs and images on the page.  Maybe, like Elizabeth Gilbert said in her TED talk, we’ve done a disservice calling writers geniuses. Maybe we have forgotten our muses and they are rebelling.

I know mine is.
[ted id=453]
http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/elizabeth_gilbert_on_genius.html