Mostly this is a response to Stevie’s ‘What Inspires Me To Write?‘, because I didn’t know what I wanted to post today. Please bear with me while I ramble…

For me, there’s the Big Three. That trio of muses that push me to write, despite convenience or self  preservation or time of night. From least intimate to most:

1: Music

I’m a big believer that if you’re going to disrupt the silence, you ought to do so only when it enhances. Some music does this better than others and I can always tell when a song really succeeds at ripping me apart and into something more when I am filled with an almost supernatural need to write. To scribble down the feelings conjured as if from nowhere by someone else’s art.

2: Real Life

Everyone I’ve cared for, everything that’s hurt,  every time the world shifts in a surprising manner. There are a lot of ‘everys’ involved, basically. I’ve mentioned my innate cowardice before, but writing is my way of dealing with ‘real life’ without actively dealing with it. It helps me sort through how I felt or how I should react or even just how it happened. From religion, and a lack there of, to family, and what that actually is, writing often makes life solid to me. Real, even.

3: Escapism

So if Muses one and two are the driving force of my poetry, Muse three is pretty much the commander and chief of my storytelling. I wrote a book. Like, that’s an actual thing I did this passed year. And much as I am loathe to admit it, one of the primary motivators was escaping my own head into a world my head created. Strange, I know.

Well, that’s what came to mind. Those big three things. Maybe in another, later post, I’ll answer the more difficult question of ‘Who inspires me to write?’.

Later Days, Jessie Gutierrez