A muse is that intangible entity that stirs your soul to write, makes you pant for pen and paper, inspires inner longings to create situations and people that will play out the stories in your head. My muse is often found in English period movies. Run Sense and Sensibility, A Room with a View, or Shakespeare in Love, and the impeccable manners, clipped English accents, and the chance to experience life in another time captivates my heart. My mind effortlessly swirls with plots and characters that are easily seen and possess a compelling need to come forth.

FINDING YOUR WRITING MUSE by Therese Stenzel

Sometimes a well-crafted book challenges my muse urging me to create stronger characters like Claire Randall in Diana Gabaldon's Outlander, deliver better dialog like Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice, or create sumptuous descriptions of hearth and home as only Rosamond Pilcher can. Certain authors like Julie Garwood, Barbra Kingsolver, and Charlotte Bronte make me dizzy with verbiage that I am determined to fit into a manuscript somewhere, somehow, sometime.

At times, my muse is hidden in the prints I have hanging in my office. One is of a woman dressed in a long green gown peering over a garden wall. On a table beside her sits a pot of tea and a plate of biscuits. The tilt of her head suggests she is anxiously awaiting her guest. This inspires me. It captures the femininity, the charm, the grace, and the manners of a period in English history that I obsess on. Stirring up that fixation that drives me to my computer, to my characters, to a fictitious town named Billingsforth, and fills me with ideas for twists and turns, plots and passion. Another print shows a girl dressed in servant's clothing positioned in a window of a great estate with an odd expression on her face. My muse tells me that a vast number of stories linger there, more anecdotes than I would ever have time for. . . my muse is very ambitious!

Whether I am starting a book or midway through, keeping in touch with my inner muse keeps my writing fresh, can lift a sagging middle story, or help me finish strong. Just hearing Shakespeare's words, Death lies upon her like an untimely frost upon the sweetest flower of all the field or Isak Dinsen's, If I know a song of Africa, of the giraffe and the African new moon lying on her back, of the plows in the fields and the sweaty faces of the coffee pickers, does Africa know a song of me? or Helen Fielding's, Hurrah! The wilderness years are over. For four weeks and five days now have been in functional relationship with adult male thereby proving am not love pariah as previously feared. . . .compels me to try harder, write better.

I have often shared with other writers the inspiration I find in British movies and they simply scorn such ideas and blather on about the glories of old western movies, allegories, or the latest romantic suspense, all things I find boring. But muses are fickle creatures and are unique to each of us. The thing that stirs your soul to fulfill your creative passion is often shared by no one else. Find your inner muse and cling to it. Squeeze out every creative offering she has and don't let anyone despise what inspires you. Honor your muse and she will honor you.

The muse for this article? A quiet Sunday afternoon with a cup of tea and the movie, Kate and Leopold. Okay, okay, and Hugh Jackman in period costume!