Diane Duane

:) Well, as regards the Great Powers, it seems to me that a good approach to them is straightforward respect: not fear, or slavish obeisance. I think that someone in one of the YW novels (or one of the interstitials) comes out and says in the clear “It’s not slaves or puppets They want: it’s colleagues.” …Because Creation strikes me as a whole lot of work to go to if all you want is subservient groveling yes-men. Since we’re all doing the same work (or at least so I’m suggesting in the books), it seems there’s no harm in being friendly. True, there may be tremendous disparity between the different amounts of power we can bring to bear on the Universe, but that’s just part of the nature of things, and there’s no reason to let it interfere with business. If local results or interactions sometimes move one to awe, or love, that’s between one and Them. Otherwise, business continues.

As regards Creativity-with-a-capital-C, it seems to me that a similar approach has merit. It is after all your creativity, not something from outside. Surely it seems like a healthy thing to be friendly with yourself, especially with such a gifted fraction of you. At the very least you can get in the habit of treating it like a trusted co-worker. You can’t always depend on unalloyed cooperation from it, of course. Sometimes Big C is trying to express (or refusing to…) something that hasn’t been sufficiently processed to get up to the conscious levels, and there may be ructions—fits of resistance, compositional speed bumps—while these issues are getting sorted out or your understanding of an issue reaches the necessary depth. But at the end of the day you and the creative impulse are doing (in the Sherlockian sense) the same Work; so again, it seems like the friendly approach is best. A worthwhile friendship will withstand some fairly robust levels of disagreement.

And here too the respect comes in, because sometimes Creativity operates in ways you can’t even begin to understand—putting things into your hands that leave you gaping in complete wonder as you realize how little you were holding until that moment. Where does it come from? How does this happen? Who even knows. So much of the creative process is a black box. But in my experience, becoming okay with that is important. What’s life without a little mystery? Who wants all the questions answered? Along with that divine uncertainty comes endless possibility. (And the accompanying chill of the Unknown down your spine, just as good for your reader or viewer as it is for you.) But you have to learn to leave Big C room to operate: trust it to get the job done for you. This can take time… and more time to recover when (as it occasionally does) the trust slips.

And God knows there’s room for jokes in the relationship; for pratfalls and slapstick and practical jokes, and forgiveness for them. Again, I’m clear that when I’m working, it’s me both inflicting the creative pratfalls (for whatever interior reasons) and granting forgiveness for them. I have zero patience with the concept of Big C as “the Muse,” as some obscure force from outside of you that descends on you at will (its will) and dispenses or enables the creative work. This particular formulation strikes me as a strategy for absolving yourself of responsibility for your own creativity: “I couldn’t do anything, the Muse wasn’t here…”

Trust me, it’s here. Probably hiding behind the closet door again. (eyeroll) Never a dull moment…