As my partner has told me in recent weeks, my writing process makes it hard for other people to be around me when I write. In truth, my ‘me’ process makes it difficult for people to be around me. While there are times where my writing process is a quiet and contemplative slag in which the only sound and motion is my fingers repeatedly striking the keys until it creates a rhythm, this is not the only way. Often I write with inspirational sounds, soothing sounds, or even TV shows cluttering the background soundscape. I draw from these things like drawing in air. Again, not always, but sometimes.
I feel like part of the move and part of the change is about changing my process and doing the writing a different way–accepting the collaborative nature of the writing and the relationship in a way I never have before. On the one hand I may be in the middle of a major spurt of writing and need to take a moment to focus on my partner and her needs. That is unfamiliar, but good and healthy and something I really want to do–and to be able to do. I get caught up in this idea of ‘got to get it down right away or it is gone’ and she has always been respectful of that. She has never hindered my process, but instead always helped and guided me as though my muse.
She is my muse. Now my muse and I share an office, and while that is going to take some getting used to for both of us, I believe it is the beginning of a beautiful journey.