Tag: muse

IWSG: Why Aren’t You Doing Something Useful with Your Life?

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 8 Comments

Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by PJ Colando, Ronel Janse von Vuuren, and Natalie Aguirre.  Are you a writer?  Do you feel insecure?  Well, then this is the support group for you!  Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.

Hello, friends!

I’m not a scientist, I’m not an engineer, and I don’t work for NASA.  I’m just some guy on the Internet who loves space.  In my last few IWSG posts, I talked about how I sometimes worry that I’m not sciency enough to call myself a science communicator.  Today, I want to talk about the flip-side of that particular insecurity.

Every once in a while, somebody I know in real life will discover my blog.  They’ll see my spacey art, they’ll read my spacey writing, they’ll recognize my obsession with all things outer space, and they’ll compliment me for being so knowledgable about this topic.  Which then leads to an inevitable question: “But why haven’t you pursued a career in science?”

That question stings.  If you don’t understand why it stings, let me translate that question into something that I suspect every writer, every artist, every dancer, every actor, every musician—every creative person of every sort—has had to contend with at some point: “Your art/writing/whatever is good, but why aren’t you doing something more useful with your life?”

When I’m asked why I haven’t pursued a scientific career, typically, I just tell people I’m bad at math.  It’s an easy excuse.  However, if I really wanted a scientific career, if I really felt that that was my calling in life, I could learn how to do math.  Math isn’t that hard.  No, the real reason I’m a writer and an artist, rather than a scientist, is because the world needs beauty.  The world always needs beauty, and so in every generation, some number of people will be called upon by the Muse to make beautiful things.

I am one of the people the Muse has called upon (or at least I strongly believe this about myself).  I will trust others to do the math and the science and the engineering required to understand nature and explore the cosmos.  Meanwhile, I’m going to do my best to make good art and do good writing—the kind of art and writing that celebrates space and science and the future of humanity out there among the stars—because I want people to see those things as I see them.  I want people to see how beautiful it all is.

Art?  Writing?  Creative expression in general?  These things are useful.  More than that, these things are needed.  Don’t listen to anyone who questions that.

WANT TO LEARN MORE?

Today’s blog post was inspired by We Need Your Art: Stop Messing Around And Make Something, by Amie McNee.  If you’re feeling insecure about your writing (or any other form of creative expression), this book might be the pep talk you need.  Click here to see the book’s listing on Amazon.

IWSG: I Believe in Fairies

~ J.S. Pailly ~ 24 Comments

Hello, friends!  Welcome to this month’s meeting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group, a blog hop created by Alex J. Cavanaugh and co-hosted this month by Jennifer Lane, L Diane Wolfe, Jenni Enzor, and Natalie Aguirre.  Are you a writer?  Do you feel insecure?  Well then good news!  This is the support group for you!  Click here to learn more and to see a list of participating blogs.

As you can probably tell from the name of my blog, I love space.  I also love science and science fiction.  I’ve been loving space, science, and science fiction for such a long time now that I’ve developed a highly scientific, highly evidence-based view of the world.  I don’t pay attention to astrology.  I don’t take tarot cards or Ouija boards seriously.  I don’t knock on wood or worry about black cats crossing my path.  I don’t believe in any superstitions except one: I do believe in fairies.

That’s because I happen to know a fairy.  I call her my muse, and she can be super annoying sometimes, always pestering me with new ideas and nagging me about writing whenever I take even the shortest possible break from writing.

It’s hard to deny the existence of fairies when there’s this one fairy who just will not leave you alone, not even for one goddamn minute!

Anyway, the real point I’m trying to make is that there is a highly scientific, highly evidence-based approach you could take to writing.  You could learn all about the craft of writing.  You could study plot and characterization.  You could memorize all the heroic archetypes and all twelve steps of the monomythic journey.  You could find out what words like synecdoche and antimetabole mean and then apply those concepts to your writing.

And… okay, sure, you should spend some time learning about those things.  But don’t get too technical about writing.  Don’t take too scientific of an approach.  Leave room for sudden inspiration.  Be prepared for things to suddenly make sense, and you can’t explain why.  That’s probably your muse sprinkling fairy dust on your head, causing the magical side of writing to happen.

P.S.: Of course, the great science communicator Carl Sagan once said exactly what I’m trying to say, except much more succinctly: “A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic.”