The Muse

A couple of weeks ago I had a great idea for the blog.  I started writing a post called “I See A Dark Stranger” when all of a sudden, I realized that some of this sounded very familiar.

That’s because I had already written it before.

It’s called Fortune’s Cookie and you can read it now if you missed it the first time.

I had written that post in November of 2013.  And because I’ve done over 500 posts since then, I had simply forgotten all about it.

Even my good memory couldn’t keep them all straight.

And that leads me to today’s subject.

Class, we are going to now study The Creative Process.

I’ve been writing professionally for over thirty years and guess what?  It’s boring trying to describe what it’s like.

Mostly it looks like bad t#@/ing.   I mean typing.

I can’t even describe what it’s like when a great idea strikes.

I’m eother playing Solitaire or in the bath tub when the Muse visits.  (See what I mean about the bad typing?)

So rather than have me try to explain it, take a look at how Hollywood has depicted the stormy and fascinating life of a writer.

Let’s start with the great F. Scott Fitzgerald, shall we?

Greg Peck is SO miscast.  And hey, I don’t think I ever saw Scott writing, did you?  What did I tell you?

How about Truman Capote?  He was the subject of my junior theme in high school and he was also the subject of two bio pics.

Here’s Infamous where you get two authors for the price of one.  Toby Jones plays Tru and Sandra Bullock plays his buddy and childhood neighbor, Nelle Lee.  (That’s Harper Lee to the rest of us.)

Now here’s a novelty. I actually found a scene in a movie where a writer (briefly) writes. Miracle.

And as long as we’re doing Famous Brit Authors, let’s peek at this man’s life.

Bah humbug!  This is a G-rated version of Charles Dickens’s much more fascinating and complicated life.  This movie is a Christmas turkey.

But here’s a pretty great look inside the mind- and business dealings- of another very talented English author.

Beatrix Potter’s life was another complicated one but I thought the movie captured her determination to rise above her place in Victorian society and her hidebound mother’s  snobbish conventions and pretensions.

If we take the Chunnel to movie France, we really hit the Mother Lode of movies about artistes.  It’s called Impromptu.

Voilà!

This is the TMZ version of the lives of George Sand, Chopin, Liszt, Alfred de Musset, Delacroix… It’s a veritable of Who’s Who- and who sleeps with who.  And it’s kind of fun watching Hugh Grant struggle with a Polish accent.  (Not to mention that he is much prettier than Judy Davis.)

In Movieland, writers aren’t always worshipped.  Sometimes they’re tortured souls struggling with writer’s block.

Here’s a pretty accurate look in Adaptation.

Now here’s a BAAAAD case.

Note to Readers: You can interrupt me anytime.  I’d much rather chat than write any day.

And sometimes authors are just plain tortured by the critics.  Take a look.

(As we all know, the deranged fan Annie goes to even further extremes to help her favorite author create.  I just can’t bear to watch them and thus I will spare you all, too.)

Now here’s an author who’s just plain f*%&ed up.

Charlize Theron was amazing in Young Adult.  Not exactly a feel good movie but what a performance.

Time for me to stop goofing around.  I have to get back to work.  I’ll leave you, Dear Readers, with some insight on how I’ve written all these 500 hundred posts.

Got to run to Tiffany’s now.