To be completely honest, I don't truly believe in a fickle muse. However, having worked so long to capture on paper "that moment" as I have recently heard it described, I do find my goals as a writer sometimes elusive.
Unlike the suffering poet or artist I have read of, though, I have not given up to wallow in self-pity and despair. On the contrary, I have found that I possess a very stubborn nature. If I cannot obtain what I wish on the first writing of a page, I shall continue to strive. And even if I do grasp a bit of that certain something that defies description, I am still not completely satisfied. The editor in me will return repeatedly to go over, cut, add, mull, criticize, and final leave it alone still unfinished yet again.
To be a writer is to always feel like your work is unfinished. Even when the plot is portrayed on the paper, the character of the main cast is clear, and the prose relatively error free, there are still nagging issues, points, items, details, descriptions, etc. that could have been done differently and perhaps better. Writing is an imprecise art, driven by mood, whim, and elements only half grasped. Yet still I sail, like a sailor with a broken compass on an ocean with a hazy mist obscuring the stars, hoping that I am piloting my ship in the right direction knowing only that I will get somewhere at sometime and wondering why I ever left dry land.
At the same time, I know I must leave dry land. I must take the risk. Like a sailor who has the sea in his blood, I must return to my wandering.
- Rachel Rossano
