You Need A Muse

No, not the tortured-artist version people usually mean.

Dear drafter,

Most of us were taught, implicitly or explicitly, that creative work is an identity test.

That the words come from you, reflect you, and therefore expose you. Which means every sentence carries a little threat. If it’s bad, that means something about you. If it stalls, that means something about you too.

No wonder so many of us freeze.

A muse changes how that weight is distributed. It takes the full burden of authorship off one nervous system and lets it be shared with something else. Someone else. Even if that someone is imagined.

At its core, a muse is an externalized relationship to your own creative impulse. So when you create a muse, you’re not outsourcing responsibility. You’re changing the conditions under which responsibility (and self-blame) operates.

Instead of asking, “Is this good?” the question becomes, “Did I show up?” “Did I make contact?”

Instead of trying to produce something worthy, you’re responding to a relationship.

And this is where it matters that your muse isn’t passive.

A muse doesn’t just receive what you bring. It gives something back. It responds to contact. It sharpens what’s alive. It resists what’s vague. It pulls harder on the parts of the work that want more room to breathe.

Openness matters not because the muse needs your effort, but because that’s how the relationship starts to work on you.

A muse doesn’t require you to be impressive. A muse requires continuity. The willingness to answer back, even clumsily. Especially clumsily.

I recently wrote a Note on Substack that resonated with a lot of people:

That Note kept making me think about muses, even though I couldn’t immediately explain why. So stick with me as I feel my way through it.

A bad draft isn’t a failure, especially if you’re writing to a muse. It’s not just a reply. It’s an invitation. It gives the relationship something to push against, something to respond to, something to shape.

It says, “I’m here.” And in return, something answers. Not in words, exactly. In tension. In curiosity. In the sense that there’s more here if you stay.

A perfect imaginary draft, on the other hand, is a conversation you keep rehearsing instead of actually having. It feels so full of potential, but it creates no contact. No trust. No resistance. No momentum.

Muses don’t live through rehearsal. They live through presence.

When you’re overwhelmed, the problem may not be effort or discipline. It’s too much unfulfilled potential, too much pressure, too much self-surveillance happening all at once.

Having a muse lowers the cognitive load by introducing otherness.

You no longer have to carry craft, judgment, vulnerability, and outcome all at the same time. You just have to keep the line open. To show up. To reach out. To offer something. To let the relationship answer back.

That might look like writing one ugly paragraph. Or opening the document and leaving a note. Or saying, “This is bad, but it’s not the end. I’m in it now.”

That counts.

Over time, the act of reaching out comes to feel like the part that matters just as much, if not more, than the words going on the page. And the page stops feeling like a mirror held up to your worth. It becomes a place you return to. A place where something meets you. Pushes back. Asks for more.

Yes, what you’re meeting there is still you. Your creativity, undiluted. Your brilliance and weirdness and vision. But held at just enough of a distance that it can surprise you, challenge you, change you.

To borrow from Walt Whitman, you are large. You contain multitudes. A muse is one way you can learn how to listen for those multitudes.

That’s the real power of a muse.

Not that it makes you better.

That it makes it possible to keep going.
To be who you really are.
To connect with all facets of yourself.
To create what you’re meant to create.

Talk soon,
Sheridan

P.S. My muse’s name is Hilde.