Muses and Friends

[melannen]

There was a link in today's metafandom to a poll in permetaform's lj on muses, and in the course of reading the responses and trying to articulate my own answer, I had something of an epiphany about the concept of muses as expressed in certain parts of fandom, something which has always bothered me somewhere in the back of my brain. As the discussion there seems pretty much dead (that's what I get for metafandoming after midnight), and the voices in my head are telling me that I want to explore this some more, I've decided to make a poll/post of my own.

You see, I've never understood the people who talk about their 'muses' as if they were actual people, special friends of theirs, who show up in day-to-day places, and talk to them, and have a nearly real existence of their own, only nobody else can see them. It made no sense to me, and it bothered me deeply, too. This, I finally realized, is because using the term 'muse' had locked me into thinking that they were somehow specially to do with writing or art.

Because I've now realized that I *know* what's being decribed here. I've *experienced* it. Only they're not muses. They're imaginary friends. They do all the same things, and have all the same behaviors, as these people's muses, only they aren't particularly associated with my writing, except in the way that they're a vital part of my life, and so is my writing. And yes, they have each nagged me into writing at least one story for them. Heck, I *blame* my love of writing on KB, who is the oldest and most persistent of the bunch.

So, yeah. Now that I've realized that muses are what I call imaginary friends, it all makes perfect sense. Muses aren't a vaguely pathological, overdramatic attempt to act out, they're a perfectly normal, perfectly common, perfectly healthy psychological phenomenon. When I was in kindergarten, you were the odd one out if you *didn't* have at least a teddy bear who talked to you. Granted, it supposedly stops occuring by age 12, but I'm all for healthy childish behaviors persisting into adulthood! And KB did stop talking to me when I was ten and decided I was old enough to go to camp without him, but a lot of careful flattery and coaxing eventually pulled him out of his sulk. :D

I did my senior psychology research project on imaginary friends. Unfortunately, I don't have the data on my computer here, and I don't remember much of the background I learned for it: I will have to find the paper the next time I go home. But as best I recall, I managed to get well over half of my classmates to admit to having had either an imaginary friend, or a teddy bear or special toy that interacted with them like an imaginary friend.

So now I'm wondering whether the people who have muses never experienced this as kids, or they did but for some reason they haven't connected their muses with their old friends, or if there's something more going on here that I've missed. (And here I'm specifically using 'muse' in the way it was collectively defined in the comment threads permetaform linked to in her original post; if you're not clear on what kind of muse I'm referring to, it would help if you looked there.)

That means, Yay! Poll time!
[Poll #481426]
And please, please, link this around, this subject is dear to my heart, and I'd like to get lots of data. I think I may even go try to whore myself to metafandom for it.

Comments

[permetaform]

I can't say that I'd ever had imaginary friends, but I had imaginary *places* that I would go to or inhabit. I would take journeys to different places or set up my room/blankets/pillows into mountains or caves and playact with my cousins. I think I was making blanket fort-like-things up until 10 or 11 or so whereupon I discovered public libraries. Until I ran out of books, and then I found anime until I ran out of anime and then I found fandom.

Actually, come to think of it, most of my creative spurts happened 'cause I wasn't getting enough product so I got fed up and produced it myself.

huh.

::glomps:: thank you for posting something so brainchewy!

addendum

[permetaform]

oops, forgot to mention, I don't create with muses as far as I know. I am using 'muse' with the definitions as outlined by the people who've had them in various comments to my post.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

It was chewing *my* brain, I had to let it out. *g*

So, hmm. That's interesting. I've always been really bad with imaginary places; even things like trying to imagine my 'happy place' for meditation trips me up. I can only find imaginary places when I already know the people who live in them.

I guess the question from here is, do stories come to you as places? I know I was reading meta *somewhere* recently where somebody was saying that that was how she got ideas, by starting with an image or feeling of the place where the story happened...

[pinkpolarity.livejournal.com]

The whole "muses as imaginary friends" concept is an interesting theory and may be the case for some people, but not for me. I'd think (been a long time since I had an imaginary friend, lol) that you've got some vague control over imaginary friends. I've had one legitimate "muse" in my adult life, the one that sent me to soulbonding to see if that framework name fit it (which it probably does, at least to the degree that not all soulbonders are "plural"). He shows up, thwaps me on the head, sometimes this leads to writing (and sometimes just to insight about myself), and then goes away again. Rather like the deity whom I serve occasionally says things to me (quite common in my faith, actually, I'm in no way speshul. ;), and quite often they're things I really didn't care to hear. I've no say in either of these things, definitely wouldn't have chosen *that* muse or *that* deity, but I've the sense to shut up and learn from the experience (most of the time). I am rather envious of the people with tons of muses who show up at all hours and chit-chat and give them plotlines, as I've never experienced that. Especially since the one appearance that led to writing left me with an unfinished WIP and absolutely no way to recapture the state of mind that led me to write the darned thing in the first place.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I'd say it depends on the muse and the friends! My imaginary friends are pretty low-key about stuff these days (and so am I) but I really have no control whatsoever over KB, and never have; he does what he likes, and if I try to force him, he goes away and sulks. Imogene I can call up, but once she shows up she's her own person, and she leaves when *she* feels like it. The others are less consistent.

My conversations with Deity are something else again; I hadn't even thought about bringing Them into this, because relationships with Deity are *so* *freaking* *fraught*, but, hmm, there is a certain similarity in some ways. Thinky.

So, it's been a long time since you had imaginary friends? How long? Have you had one as a 'grown-up', or since the muse found you?

[nike-victory.livejournal.com]

Hi. I'm here from metafandom.

Multiple muses aren't as fun as you seem to think they are. Take your "Comes out occassionally and thwaps me" and multiply it and that's what I've got. It's very annoying if you're working on one thing and the muse you need isn't there while another one is trying to get you to work on something entirely different. You also have to worry about fights. I'll admit I've never actually witnessed a fight between my muses, but that's really the only way I can describe it when I get the distinct impression that one muse wants nothing to do with another muse.

[fluffyllama.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm going with calling what I have muses since I don't have a better word. I'm not sure which of them would count as muses by anyone else's definition, though.

I have voices that I can hear in my head, though they don't actually speak to *me*. They talk to each other, and that's where most of the dialogue I write comes from; it's like I put certain characters in a situation mentally and see what happens. Sometimes the fic changes because it dosen't go quite as I expected, but I always 'hear' it first.

Most characters will do that much for me, but there are a few who will do this when I'm not trying to write, or not trying to write about them. The ones who pop up on their own are the ones I suppose I would call muses. I consider them parts of me, because they form words in my head that I speak or want to in certain situations, or strangely, I feel like I'm using their facial expressions or their walk, or whatever else I feel like I have identified as their characteristics. That's why I think I approach writing characters more like an actor than a writer. It's also why it's best not to get in an argument with me when I'm writing Snape *sigh*

[fluffyllama.livejournal.com]

Oh, and because I don't think I made it clear, the second lot *do* speak to me. Usually to bitch me out and tell me that it didn't happen that way at all, and wouldn't it be better if I wrote it from their POV so I could get it right?

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Hmm. I have those conversations in my head too-- I think a lot (most?) writers do, and they are what is sometimes called muses, but not really at the level what I'm trying to aim at here.

What you're describing about how you sometimes involuntarily take on their characteristics, though, is interesting, and I don't know that I've seen quite that interpretation of muses before. I actually have no idea whether that would happen to me-- when story starts to come on me that strongly, I have to just hide in a dark place and write until I can function as myself again. (Doesn't happen often, but it did last night, which is maybe why I'm thinking so much about it now.)

Hmm. Very, very interesting. I know I have occasionally read versions of imaginary friends, and plenty of other odd occurences, of course, where imaginaries act *through* their real friend rather than being outside, but it does seem to me qualitatively different from the completely independent muses people were describing in permetaform's thread.

[mctabby.livejournal.com]

I had a paracosm: defined as a detailed, complex imaginary world sustained over a period of years. In my case, between the ages of four and 12. In fannish terms, I might describe it as a multi-fandom crossover WIP that just went on and on and on. :D The world and characters accompanied me wherever I went, and I'd spend every spare moment making up stories in my head, with each storyline lasting from a couple of days to a couple of weeks.

Links: What is a paracosm? (http://www.mikecrook.com/docs/paracosm/whatis.htm) and Imaginative Wor(l)ds: Paracosms and Writing Development (http://www.bsu.edu/classes/bullock2/academics/PARASTUD.htm).

No, I don't have muses. I might joke about the Parody Muse or my OCs, referring to them as if they were separate entities, but I'm only joking. Isn't it fun to believe in an Obscene Verse Muse occasionally? :D

[melannen.livejournal.com]

*That* is really interesting. I don't think I'd ever encountered the term "paracosm" before, although of course I knew the Brontes and Tolkien and other famous ones. It reminds me actually of something from the books my username comes from, where there were a race of domestic humans bred to spend their entire lives building a paracosm, and their last sacrament before death was to finally tell the story.

I have at least one world, and possibly two, that are over ten years old, still active, and fit the definition in your second link. And a very embarassing one with flying horses who lived in a castle built on a cloud before that. :) But, they've never been quite as intense, I think, as what you're describing or what I've read about the Brontes' and other places, there was never the sense that they were a place I could go. Hm.

And yes, it's fun to talk about them when you're joking! I personify my muse as a small yappy dog; he has been known to occasionally, err, commit indiscretions with my leg.

[antiscian.livejournal.com]

Love the icon.

I seem to be the sole exception so far that has neither. Imaginary friends I understand, though, on some very intuitive basis -- had my childhood been a tad different I could totally see myself having a merry stable of those. The idea of muse, though, confuses the hell out of me: when I attempt fiction I'm usually quite conscious of all effort/idea/imagination being mine, and I can't really comprehend on an intuitive level attributing that to a muse in any way but allegorical.

Basically, the only muse I have is this (http://www.livejournal.com/users/antiscian/2004/07/14/). :P

Given how fandom-biased the whole muse concept appears to be, it'd be interesting to run this poll on a more general writerly audience and see if the data that turns up for both muses and imaginary friends is similar to the fandom-writer data. Could also run it on people who don't identify self as writers in any way, though the results of that will be predictably muse-less.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

See, I was very confused and uncomfortable about that until about eight hours ago, when I realized that I do occasionally have bits of creativity I attribute to my imaginary friends, and even a couple of old stories that, if they ever get finished, KB deserves co-writing credit on. But the way in which some people attribute nearly all of their output to 'others' is still a bit odd to me, yes-- if only because I'd probably just say 'shut up and write it yourself!' if I had muses that demanding. Writing's hard work, I want the credit for it.

So, tell me, you understand imaginary friends intuitively even though you've never experienced it? It seems like a pretty bizarre concept when I try to look at it from the outside...

And as interesting as it would be, I think I'd have to make the terminology a lot more complicated to move out of fandom and get meaningful results; muses are confusing enough to people already *in* the subculture. But there are enough non-fanfic people on my flist that I might be able to get something. And if I ever find that psych paper, I have fifty or so survey responses about imaginary friends from non-writers that I can add in!

[zodiaccat.livejournal.com]

I'm not entirely certain this makes sense, but it's kind of a combination of two of the choices.
As a child, I had the "special toy" type of imaginary friend; three, in fact; that I would talk to and interact with on an everyday basis. I think I was in middle school before they seemed to lose their conciousness. I'm pretty sure my mother still has my "imaginary clique" in a trunk somewhere.
For the better part of my life, though, I've talked to people who weren't there. For me, these are real people (my managers, friends, relatives, etc.), but they are also people who aren't present at the time I'm talking to them. I suppose my mind just kind of fills in their part of the conversation.
Like I said, I'm not entirely sure any of this makes sense.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Interesting. It makes as much sense as any of this does! So when you talk to these real people, though, do you get the sense that they're really there, or that you're talking to someone else, like you did with your toys? Or are you just sort of rehearsing conversations in your head?

[frey-at-last.livejournal.com]

I should probably qualify my answer. Although I had/have "special toys" with their own personalities, I definitely always associated it with playing and "normal" childish interaction, because I was playing them with my twin. I'm curious if KB and your other special toy/imaginary friends originally came when you physically played with them, because Courtney and I used to walk our stuffed animals around and have them speak in their voices and talk to each other. They sort of made up a complex family, and all had their distinct personalities, voices, likes, dislikes, obsessions, fears, family members they liked/disliked, jealousies, histories, etc.

When it started, when we were about 8, they were definitely distinct from us as toy-characters, and we could shut them on and off because we were just playing with toys, like with anything else. In time, though, we've altered that somewhat. I'm still incapable of looking at one of them and trying to impress upon myself that it is an inanimate object with fabric and stuffing, and I still sleep with the main one, but we've divorced their personalities from that side of it. Now, although it's still solely interaction with the other twin, and I could never ever "call up" the characters when I'm by myself (I would be so conscious of it), we have developed a kind of behavior with each other that we can "put on" (but sometimes have trouble "taking off").

So, that's why when I say I had an "imaginary friend" I didn't *really* have an imaginary friend. :P And they're not at all connected with my creativity, which I also always feel I am in control of.

It's interesting, because I wonder if I would have created independent personalities if I'd been a single instead of a twin. Intense creativity can definitely grow between normal siblings (the Brontes, C.S. and Warnie Lewis), but I wonder how many twins in history have had to have imaginary friends.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

I really can't say how KB developed because he's been himself in one way or another since before I can remember; I was sleeping with him before I was out of the hospital, and Mom and Dad named him before I could talk. And I've gone through different phases of how I think about him; now that I'm older, I hold very tight to the belief that he's himself, because he goes away if I don't. (I'm going to try to get into this more in reply to antiscian above.)

But my main imaginary friend was definitely someone I consciously conjured up because I wanted an imaginary friend, although she's gotten more independent as time passes.

The question about twins and siblings is interesting. stellar_dust needs to wake up and put her two cents in. I know there was a fair amuont of collaborative creativity between us, but our special toys never interacted much in my memory, although when we were *really* little KB and Rainbow did sometimes, sometimes with my parents' help, when we were fighting... Possibly I'm just not good at playing with others.

[obsessed1.livejournal.com]

When I say "muse" I mean the ephemeral and undefinable source of my bolt from the blue inspirations. I don't have conversations with invisible friends or mythical creatures... unless you count my room mate (who has been called Thor upon occasion because he's big and Nordic-looking), who helps me develop a lot of my half-baked ideas.

I'd expand more, but I'm out the door to work. To sum up, it's mostly just a conveluted thought process that involves a lot of talking to hear my own voice and/or desperate leaps of logic. =-)

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Desperate leaps of logic! My favorite method for getting story ideas!

[siegeofangels.livejournal.com]

I didn't have imaginary friends, and I don't ascribe any writing or other creative things I do to a muse (I'm more likely to say that it "wrote itself," for those times when I wasn't taking such an active role in creation).

When I was little, I did have at least one toy with a personality (I think? Can't quite remember, which puts the losing of that personality fairly early), and I do remember that sometimes my sister (2 years older) would pretend to be a cat, and when she did, it was clear that I was talking to Kitty and not to Sister, and Kitty had her own personality.

Now that I think about it, I totally have conversations with real people who are not present--usually people I don't know very well or at all. "What if [minor celebrity] happened to drive past my house and offered to help me shovel snow?" "Next time I see [X], he's going to say blah blah, and I'm going to say blahdy blah blah . . ." I have a feeling this stems from high school, when people would randomly verbally attack you for no discernable reason, and I think I might be trying to come up with comebacks or defensive measures pre-emptively. This is also how a lot of the dialogue in my stories happens, which is probably why my characters sound much more suave than I do in real life.

One other thing that might be relevant: when weird or unexplainable things happen at work (I work in a not-very-densely-populated building), I'm very unlikely to think that the reason for the happening is a spirit, although that's the conclusion that a number of my co-workers come to. I can go into this in more detail and with actual examples in a locked post or email if you'd like.

I do talk to the elevators and other inanimate objects, but they don't talk back.

Other

[kenosis-kalon.livejournal.com]

Well one I fragment my personality quite a bit and make deep splinter personalities to fill roles in fantasy setting. While I don't "talk" to them persay, we do have plesant mental conversations. Beyond that I've had extended conversations with uncorperate concepts. And will occaisional talk to unpersonified object in hopes of convincing them my view of how the world should be is, and my view of how the world is isn't. Now dragons I've met most people would probably tell you are imaginary, but they certainly don't seem imaginary, quite the contrary I find "real" people seem imaginary. Though as a recovering solipsist most of those I'd rather not take credit for.

[alixtii.livejournal.com]

I won't say I don't believe in my muse for fear if I do, she'll use a cattle prod on me and make me write something during finals week. Just like I don't say I don't believe in Goddess either. A mystic mustn't betray her metaphor. Instead, she subtly undermines it.

There are differently ways of interpreting and constructing the information we receive, and I'm not sure if it makes any sense to talk about reality or existence.

[melannen.livejournal.com]

It's fun to play with solipsism, though!

That's kind of where I was for a while with my teddy bear; don't dare say he's not real because I'm afraid of what he'd do in response. But is he? ... I keep censoring this when I try to talk about it because I'm teetering on the edge of that place where language shapes reality and I can't even talk about how I construct my belief for fear that the act of examining it will alter the belief.

[branchandroot]

My thoughts on this ran on so long I gave them a post of their own, rather than stuff your comments list with sequential entries. *wry*

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Yay! The path goes ever on!

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

My co-writer and I (and I think our immediate circle of fannish writers/artists/etc) tend to use "muse" to describe what happens when we've spent so long thinking about this character and trying to understand how he/she thinks that story ideas, dialogues, or characters' reactions to things come unbidden to us, or with only very little conscious effort. For instance, I've had dreams at night that are from the POV of my "muses", and moments of uncanny insight and story ideas which I also attribute to them. But mostly that's just semi-joking shorthand for "oh god, I've spent *way* too much time trying to get into this character's head, and now he's getting into mine!"

[melannen.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much how I'd be likely to use the term, although it's such a vague term that I usually don't use it even for that. 'The little so-and-so in my head' covers it pretty well, I think.

The much weirder cases, though, where people's muses actually get out and walk around? yeah.

[aelkiss.livejournal.com]

I think all my imaginary (I wrote 'invisible' there at first) friends were gone by the time my parents divorced when I was 8.

My favorite imaginary friend was M. George Cone, who ran a traffic cone factory and would sell you traffic cones of all shapes, colors and sizes (including the ever-so-useful clear traffic cone). Can you tell I liked to play with him on the interminable road trips to Florida when I was very young?

There were others, such as Henry and Henrietta Treetop (or was it Hilltop, or Birdhouse? Something like that, anyway) and maybe more that I've forgotten.

No muse for me now, though, and it's a little hard for me to imagine having somebody else inside my head that really felt separate. I think even when I had imaginary friends I was aware they were something I made up, although since I was so young I could be misremembering. And although my stuffed animals (especially Bagel the hippo and Whale the Whale (which was my binky)) had personalities, I think, I'm not sure I was ever aware of them as separate individuals.)