Persistence, Not Muse

Many conversations in creative writing especially circle around the idea of a writer's "muse", the mythical source of inspiration and genius. "How do I ignite my muse?" beginners ask, as if it were a sparkplug. "She has deserted me!" Abandonment issues? Here's the secret: discipline, not myth, pays off.

Barbara Kingsolver majored in biology at DePauw University in Indiana, and then got a master's degree in evolutionary biology. She was working on a Ph.D. thesis on the social lives of termites when she decided to abandon a career in science and try to become a writer. She took a job as a technical writer, which forced her to sit in front of a computer for eight hours a day and do nothing but write.

She later said, "I learned to produce whether I wanted to or not. It would be easy to say oh, I have writer's block, oh, I have to wait for my muse. I don't. Chain that muse to your desk and get the job done." Kingsolver went on to success writing both novels and nonfiction books.