Angels of Venice, Lionheart, and Virginia Kate . . . music without words . . .

Good Morning!

I was thinking about "muses" and what inspires creativity. Though I do believe that if you wait for inspiration to come, you may spend a lot of time waiting and little time doing. For me, I see the actual doing as creating the inspiration. So, when I sit down to write, and put my fingers to the keys, and begin writing, then inspiration comes. I don't want to wait for it. I spent far too many years having to wait for my dream -- a dream I buried deep during the years I couldn't allow myself to remember what I wanted. To go around waiting for inspiration to strike me is a waste of any time I have left in this old world. I am prolific (in what I have in my files, not necessarily what will be published) only because I know I have to just sit and write; however, it is what I love to do and I find no struggle in the actual writing -- yes, there are "struggles" to being a writer, but, the actual writing is not one of them for me.

I do find inspirational surges when I am in nature, and especially when I am deep in the woods and my mind wanders as it becomes a part of all that is around me.

Music can create those surges as well. Though I can't listen to music as write, unless perhaps it is Music Without Words, and then only certain kinds and in certain circumstances.

There is this one piece of music by Angels of Venice, called (appropriately) LIONHEART that I have on a Natural Wonders cd. Every time that music played, I imagined Virginia Kate riding up her mountain, then there would be snatches of "scenes" from the beginning of the book - she'd be thrumming up the mountain on Fionadala's back, and first she'd be a young girl, but by time she reached the ridge, she was a woman, turning turning to release. The beginning of the book, where I have the part in italics (below) all came from this piece of music. I'd listen to it in my car and sometimes I'd cry -- the image of VK was so strong and so real, I'd get goosebumps. I'd say, "Go VK ... Ride! go!" and I'd dream of the day she'd be published so that you all could envision her as well. And now she is published. . . when I listen to LIONHEART now, I am still overcome, but now I know others can envision VK flying up the mountain.

I wanted to use this piece, or a portion of it, for the trailer, but there are copyright laws and all that, so I couldn't.

Here is the Angels of Venice website.

Here is (link won't work! sorry! dang!)-- I'm not sure this link will work so you can listen, especially when to the fiddles come in, that's the point where I'd get the goosebumps. I hope the music plays.

Here's one of the things I wrote to go with that music, what I visualized as the music played:

Grandma Faith wavers in the mists, the wolf calls, the owl flies, the mountain is. Up up I go on Fionadala’s back, her hooves thundering. I see my child’s eyes only, through the closet keyhole, dark eyes are open, then closed. Thundering hooves, up the mountain we ride. At the ridge I stop, take Momma from my pack. And there, with mountain song rising, with fog wetting, with Fionadala nodding her head, with the fiddles of the old ghosts of old mountain men crying, with the voices of all I’ve lost and all I’ve gained, with the mountains cradling, with the West Virginia soil darkening my feet, with Momma’s cry of “Do It!” I open her vessel, and as I twirl, turning turning turning, I let her out—she flies out with a sigh, with forty thousand sighs. As I come to rest, she settles upon me, settles upon the trees and mountain and rock, settles, then is finally stilled. The owl cries, the wolf calls, the mountain is, Grandma Faith nods. Momma is a part of it all now.

Now, you all have a good day: Go DO the day--and don't wait for inspiration, find it in the Doing.