Pageturners: in search of the Muse

Have you found yours?

Welcome to Pageturners, a book I’m writing in which I share what I’ve learnt – and am still learning – about comic writing, film writing, novel writing and how new writers can sell their stories. I’ll publish a chapter or a section per week, available for free here on Iconoblast. And I welcome your feedback or questions, so do leave a comment below!

Missed the Pageturners intro? Read it here.

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Illustration by David Broughton

In search of the Muse

For as long as I can remember, whenever young writers asked me for pointers, I’d always ask them, why do you write? What I really meant was: have you found your Muse? In response, I’d see a blank or puzzled expression, or disappointment. It really wasn’t what they wanted to hear. And I have some sympathy with them, because much of today’s writing doesn’t require a Muse. She might even get in the way. So a more accurate question might be, have you found a way of keeping your Muse quiet? Because so many commercially successful books, films and comics seem devoid of her presence. Instead they are written ‘by the book’, following safe rules and devoid of genuine emotion. 

I’ve noticed that many writers deny they’re motivated by anything other than the desire to make money. In British comics, speed writing was the norm and you were seen as a freak if you took time and care over your storytelling. That attitude is still there today, although rather more covert (and of course, denied). I told 2000AD that I couldn’t continue writing Sláine because it would require six weeks unpaid research. There was no attempt to meet me half way or to find a solution. It was better to let a number one story go. Similarly, in the past when I  wanted to continue Charley’s War into World War Two, I asked for a research budget. No chance. Better to let a number one story go…  

It’s an industry designed – then and now – to keep creators in their place. Payment rates were deliberately kept low by publishers, to encourage writers to knock out stories without thinking. In fact, ‘pissing stories off’ was a cause for congratulation, not criticism. When I started, there were no by-lines, the author’s name was blacked out on the script and artist’s signatures were whitened out on the artwork. That way, publishers could dispose of stories any way they wished and ‘divide and rule’ over creators. The result was that writers stopped caring what happened to their work and were indifferent when others took over their stories or characters without acknowledgement or remuneration. I’m seen as ‘difficult’ to this day because I object to these last-century, archaic practices, some of which still persist.

Kevin and I used those unhealthy attitudes in comics to characterise Dave Maudling in our dark comedy thriller, Serial Killer (which is serialised and you can start reading for free here). Here is Dave on the subject when he asks for the help of an agony aunt with his problems.

Were you ever happy, Dave?’ she asked him through her smoke cloud. 

There was a long pause and then he replied with a more glum and deadpan expression that even Clement Freud could never hope to match. ‘Not that I can recall.’ 

‘You don’t enjoy writing?’
‘I enjoy writing the invoice. The invoice is the most creative part.’
‘You’ve never liked anything you’ve written?’
‘Well, the full stops were pretty impressive and I liked the ellipses, too.’

I’m not convinced by Dave’s opinion. He’s simply emotionally shut down. Other writers have different motives for writing which appear to be more valid, but are still not the complete answer. They are still not the Muse. Here are some typical motives: 

Wanting to disconnect from the real world and escape into your own immersive world where the characters play by your rules. Catharsis for childhood trauma. Dealing with injustice. Love of travel, sport or history. Exploring the mysteries of life. Exploring the esoteric world. Seeking understanding of human relationships. Wanting to make people happy. 

Stephen King purges his anxiety through horror. John Le Carré was alienated from his privileged establishment roots and that’s what drove his writing. And C.S. Lewis promoted his Christian ideas in his Narnia books. 

I’ve certainly been motivated to write about childhood poverty, parentage, politics, religion and so on. But I don’t see such encounters as uniquely traumatic and writing about them as particularly cathartic. Shit happens to us all and there’s no escape, whoever we are. It’s just valuable story material. 

A lot of writers would be happy to leave their motivation at this level, and not go any deeper. You might feel that way yourself, and commercially it might even seem to make sense for you, in which case I recommend you skip this section, because its rewards are not so immediate and so obvious. It’s certainly what society encourages. Too much introspection is likely to be frowned upon as navel-gazing. So we just accept that many people, notably writers and artists, are driven, passionate or even ‘really weird’ about their work and then we forget about them. We might even acknowledge that they’re inspired by the Muse, but to analyse what that actually means would be seen as eccentric and pointless. Because there is no accepted vocabulary to identify, describe and chart the complexity of the Muse.

The process is made more difficult because the Muse interacts with everyone in unique and unrepeatable ways. Yet it’s at the core of why we write, paint or carry out a thousand other creative pursuits. If we acknowledge our Muse, we draw on her boundless energy, our creativity is enhanced, we avoid stories, editors and publishers that we previously thought were right for us – or she helps us put up with them if she deems it necessary – and we have a far, far clearer sense of where we are going creatively and why. Even more important, doors can open that were previously shut in our faces. Valuable coincidences will abound, beyond the easily dismissed quota for a rational world. She is a dynamic force that makes creativity endlessly exciting. 

If that sounds fanciful, consider Mark Twain’s words on the subject. ‘The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.’

Your Muse knows the reason why. She is the reason. She is the enemy of mortgages, complacency, cutting corners, an oppressive status quo, and a sedentary existence, yet she does not demand impossible goals that you can never hope to attain. 

When she is ignored, blocked, or no longer listened to, you can see the subsequent greyness in a creator’s work. The Muse has left the building.

By comparison, I’ve noticed artists and writers who are partly or wholly self-taught are more driven by the Muse than those who have the often dampening effect of a conventional education by the gatekeepers of the status quo. We’re back to that English teacher of mine again. If you look at the amazing, self-taught comic art of Kevin O’Neill, Stewart Kenneth Moore, John Hicklenton and Simon Bisley, you can see they are undoubtedly driven by the Muse. Not just by their own individual circumstances and background, but by something other.

The Muse is thwarted in her desire for you to write in endless ways: the ‘yeah, buts’ of Resistance. Resistance says ‘You can’t do it.’ ‘There’s no time.’ ‘No one wants to read what you have to say.’ ‘It’s silly.’ ‘It’s irresponsible – you need to put your family first.’ ‘You’re going to starve.’ ‘Yeah, but…’

Overcoming Resistance is the subject of The War of Art by Steven Pressfield. In it, he says, ‘The more important a call to action is to our soul’s evolution, the more Resistance we will feel about answering it. But to yield to Resistance deforms our spirit. It stunts us and makes us less than we are and were born to be.’

My favourite quote from the book is, ‘Resistance is always lying and always full of shit.’

I’ve seen at least two potentially great writers fall victim to Resistance. I wish I’d known about The War of Art at the time, because I’d have bought it for both of them. It might just have saved them from going down creative cul-de-sacs and eventually giving up. In one case, they were basing themselves on other writers, rather than themselves. That damned Dickens trap I mentioned earlier. In the other case, although they were gifted with the art of writing, and had a talent for dialogue that I envied, they weren’t paying attention to the craft of writing.  Instead, they ignored the craft, took short cuts, and paid the price. Resistance stopped them evolving and overcoming their problems, and it proved more powerful than my encouragement of their efforts. I lost them both and I still feel sad about that.

Pressfield’s book says it all, so there’s not much for me to add about Resistance.  Except to stress that common ways of suppressing the Muse are through work, family commitments, bills, fags, booze (or your substance of choice). You can’t possibly give them all up, but there are ways around these suppressors if you listen to your Muse.

Next time, I’ll introduce you to my Muse and give you some pointers on finding yours.