Guest Author: Kimberly Van Meter

Helen here. I first met fellow SuperRomance author Kimberly Van Meter at last year's national RWA conference in Dallas. We were both newly published, but since she's much more prolific than me, her third book (not that I'm counting or anything) is out this month and her fourth book will be out in April. She's smoking!

Welcome to the convertible, Kim!

The Gift Of Words

Inspiration is a funny thing. Sometimes the muse knocks you sidewise with her magic wand and you go ass over teakettle with the force of the amazing ideas ready to spring from your brain to your fingers on the keyboard and other times, it’s like the muse went on vacation and left no forwarding address.

But who has time for that fickle little imaginary friend? I don’t and most published authors on contract (and deadline) don’t have the luxury of luring the muse to return if she’s being stubborn. In fact, sometimes you have to grab that recalcitrant little hussy and shake the stories out of her because you don’t have time to play games.

That’s what happened with my current release, RETURN TO EMMETT’S MILL, published through Harlequin Superromance (help a starving writer. Go buy it. Now. Don’t wait. Hurry. While supplies last.) Pull up a chair and I’ll tell you a story about a writer, her muse, and a psychic’s advice.

As I state in my Dear Reader letter, while writing my current release, I was going through a personal crisis of my own. In short, my marriage was imploding. Not much fun to write about a blossoming romance when your own is going down the proverbial tubes. In short, I couldn’t write. I mostly sobbed at my keyboard and if I wasn’t weeping I was staring at the blinking cursor, my fingers frozen and my brain paralyzed. Writers put pieces of themselves in their work but if they have nothing to give, where do they go from there? Well, I can’t speak to other writers but what I did was panic. And cry some more. Then, I went to a psychic.

She told me some great things about my future as well as gave me hope for my marriage but the one thing she said about my writing was that my creativity would return in a month. That’s great, I said. Except my deadline was in a month. I couldn’t wait that long. She smiled and said, “Fake it ‘til you make it. You can fix it later.”

Strange advice but I’ll tell you, it worked. I pretended that I was writing wonderful prose with a meaningful plot and wonderful characters and didn’t allow that internal editor to tell me that I was doing the exact opposite.

While my heart was mending, the words flowed from a magical place and the heroine, who was going through her own pain, felt my heartbreak. Each time I sat down to the keyboard it was like opening a vein and before I knew it, I was nearing the end. I managed to make my deadline (two months to write a book isn’t long enough, I’ve learned), much to my agent’s immense relief (she was afraid I was setting myself up for a nervous breakdown with such a short window) and after I turned the book in to my editor, she emailed me to say that it was a wonderful story and my readers were going to have to read it with a tissue handy because it was a tear-jerker.

Yes, it was, for me as well. But writing it was cathartic and I don’t know if I would’ve been able to get through that painful chapter in my life without Tasha Simmons crying right alongside me. And then, I realized my muse hadn’t really left me, she just encouraged me to tap into something I wanted to run from. Sometimes the muse is the one giving out the tough love for our benefit. Through the gift of words, like a pressure valve, my writing helped the pain dissipate until it was no longer crippling.

So, when people say to me that they can only write when they’re inspired, (i.e. birds are singing, the sun is shining, and there’s peace and happiness in the world) usually I laugh. If I’d waited to be inspired to finish the book currently on the shelves I’d have missed my deadline and I might still be curled in a ball sobbing, lost and wondering whatever happened to that sweet muse who used to whisper lovely stories in my ear from the time I was fifteen until now.
Nope. Like I said, there’s no waiting in my world. I’m the boss and I say back to work. But don’t worry, I’ve learned my muse likes it a little rough. She gives as good as she gets and I’m thankful for it.

What do you do when you find yourself staring at a blank page, wondering if you’ll ever be able to write anything worth reading? How do you inspire yourself? And lastly, have you ever found the courage to write through something painful to come out the other side, feeling better because of it? I’d love to hear your stories, comments, and thoughts on the subject.