There is an interesting article on the Writers Digest website by William Kenower dated November 16, 2018. William Kenower is the editor-in-chief of Author magazine, a sought-after speaker and teacher, and the author of Fearless Writing (Writer’s Digest Books). He’s been published in The New York Times and Edible Seattle, and was a featured blogger on HuffPost. His video interviews with hundreds of writers, from Nora Ephron to Amy Tan to William Gibson, are widely considered the best of their kind on the Internet. He also hosts the online radio program Author2Author, where every week he and a different guest discuss the books we write and the lives we lead.

William Kenower

He says, “I was at a writer’s conference recently listening to a panel of authors discuss their writing process. They were asked if they believed in The Muse. One by one each author leaned into their microphones and gave an emphatic, “Yes!” or an equally emphatic, “No!” By the time the last author had answered I counted and saw that the panel was perfectly divided. It’s like they were asked if they believe in God, I thought.

I don’t believe in what we call The Muse; belief is too weak a word. I couldn’t write without her. I’ve certainly tried. When I did it was as if I’d forgotten how to write, yet there I was acting exactly like a writer, feeling more and more fraudulent with every lousy sentence. I was like a gardener who was planting Lego pieces instead of seeds. I was on my hands and knees digging and planting and watering all the while knowing nothing would grow.

Having said that, I know why half the writers on the panel explained that they believed in, “working hard” or, “putting their butt in the chair,” or, “mastering their craft,” rather than The Muse. I can control whether I decide to work hard or put my butt in the chair or master my craft. There’s a lot in a writer’s life that is out of our control. Agents and editors and readers, for instance, are out of my control. No matter how hard I work on something, I have zero say over what anyone will think of it, and what people think of it is often the measure of a story’s success. Best to keep my head down and my attention on what I actually can control. I’ve never seen or held or touched this Muse, after all. On dark days she can seem as unreal as all my fantasies of glory and praise—the adulation of all those other people who seem to hold my writing life in their inscrutable hands.

Believe in that. I don’t care what you call it—but you better believe in it. You better not call it luck, but you better not take full credit for it either. You were along for the ride. This may be the trickiest part of all in the relationship between the writer and The Muse. When you publish something you’ll be given full credit for it, but in your mind may linger the memory of how it was written. It was like a dream, wasn’t it? How many times did a character do what they wanted and not what you wanted? How many plot turns surprised you? You probably can’t remember what you labored over and what came easily, but you can remember how much you loved the writing of it, how glad you were for it. That stays with you long after the story has been told, long after the money has been spent, it stays with you and calls you back to the page because there’s another story that needs telling.”

I believe he has this point exactly right!