Invoking the Muse

You were born to write--right?--but when you put pen to paper, you come up blank. Join a writing group, counsels Judy Reeves, who believes that “the Muse loves to work a crowd.”

Reeves, a writer-editor and the co-founder of a nonprofit writing center that flourished for five years in San Diego, is author of the just-published “A Writer’s Book of Days: A Spirited Companion & Lively Muse for the Writing Life” (New World Library, $15.95).

Reeves, 57, decided in third grade that she was a writer and, when she grew up, “wanted to be Brenda Starr, girl reporter.” But, as so often happens, life interfered. “I got married, I had children, I was a full-time working mother. I made the choice to set [writing] aside . . . and that’s what I see so many people doing.”

She hopes her book, which offers writing prompts for each day of the year, plus tips on circumventing angst-inducing hurdles such as getting stuck and submitting to the critic-censor-editor within--will encourage fledgling writers “to honor that part of themselves and just do it, because the time isn’t going to come later. It’s only today.”

For those who would be writers--if only they could figure out what to write about--the book suggests topics ranging from the fanciful to the mundane: “This is how my heart was broken.” “Someone says, ‘Can I see you in the kitchen?’ ” “Write about a red convertible.” “After all, it wasn’t what she expected.” “Once, when no one was looking . . .. “

The book offers one writing tip for each month such as: “Writing practice is best done by hand because it gives a writer needed moments of pause.” Throughout, there are tidbits of literary lore and legend and quotes from celebrated writers on the agony and ecstasy of the craft. (From Harlan Ellison: “Anyone can become a writer. The trick is staying a writer.”)

After leading writing groups for five years at the Writing Center, disbanded in 1998 for want of funding, Reeves now conducts writing workshops, does freelance writing and editing, offers one-on-one coaching, and is writing her first novel, a story set in the 1950s about a Midwestern woman’s struggle to break away from dependency on her husband.

Reeves had always “dabbled in writing” while working at day jobs. “When my husband died in 1987, I started really doing it, following my heart.” As a struggling short story writer, she “got great rejections.” In her groups, she saw “so many people who are doing other things, but their heart is in writing. They will write ‘as soon as I do this or that.’ I came to know there isn’t any ‘as soon as.’ ”

In her book, Reeves counsels those who would write to commit a certain period of each day to it, just as they might commit to the gym. Keep writing, she advises. “Don’t worry about grammar or syntax or sentence structure. . . . Write what matters to you, and go to scary places . . .”

“On any given day, a writer can write the best she’s ever written, or she can compose a piece that’s clunky and misshapen and downright embarrassing in its black-and-white awfulness.” Never mind, Reeves advises. One of the worst ways to get stuck is to “believe there is such a thing as perfect.”

She believes a writer is apt to get the most valuable critique in a group of writers. Forget family and friends--”Either they feel they must criticize, but don’t know what to criticize, or bestow gushing false accolades: ‘Gosh, honey, this is just great. Have you thought of sending it to the New Yorker?’ ”

If you’re to be a wordsmith, reading good writing is a must, of course, as is a thesaurus, writes Reeves, who quotes Mark Twain: “The difference between the right word and almost the right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug.”

Invoking the Muse is another matter. Reeves tells us that Honore de Balzac kept the creative juices flowing with the help of 50 daily cups of coffee, while T.S. Eliot preferred writing when he had a head cold.

Whatever you do, advises Reeves, “don’t waste time writing about anything you don’t care about.” And, she added, don’t “get paralyzed by infinite choice. What happens is that people say, ‘I want to write about the oppression of women’ or ‘my years in the military,’ ” rather than focusing on one person or incident.

And know that talent will out: For this book, Reeves queried five publishers. On the day the Writing Center was forced to close, she arrived home to find a message from New World Library: They wanted to talk to her about publishing the book.