We are not alone. Although everyone’s journey is different, many people walk the same path. Some have failed and others have gotten further than others. Those that have won, usually have some magical level of inspiration helping them make it through. This is the story about muses. Why you need them in your life, where to find them and how to stay connected. Without a muse your journey will be a lonely one and we are not meant to live this life in solitude. Greatness comes from the impact we make on others.

The importance of a Muse

Why is the tooth fairy so special? Is it her wings or that she gives us money? No, it’s because she makes us forget about the pain of losing a tooth. When we think about a loose tooth we seldom think, oh this is going to hurt. We don’t think my body is changing and because of this I have to pull pieces of myself off. No we think now I have the opportunity to brush against magic. This magical being will visit me and reward me with a gift. How lucky am I?

Sure the tooth fairy isn’t a muse, but like a muse she gives us something to strive for. Maybe we want to even be her. Just getting close to her is enough to remind us that there’s the possibility for something out of this world to occur.

I don’t have to say how hard life is, how we’ll have to dedicate our lives to some form of work and we can’t just spend our time enjoying our own existence. What a muse does is it makes that an easier lift to carry. They help us define our purpose and dream. Without dreams or purpose there would be no hope and life would be unbearable. That’s why a muse is important. Because it takes the focus off of ourselves and our problems. Instead muses allow us to dream about marvelous opportunities.

Where to find them

Ultimately a muse personifies your greatest desire. They don’t necessarily live the life you’d like to lead. Sometimes their mystery entices and encourages you to dig deeper into your art form. So when it’s time to find them there’s a bit of searching that needs to occur. Sometimes your muse is in an unconventional place.

You’re looking for a feeling. You know how we get butterflies when we like someone? A muse gives you a similar sensation. There’s something about it that feeds your soul. The only thing is sometimes you want to sleep with your muse and sometimes you don’t. That level of interpretation is up to you. Personally I think an artist muse relationship can withstand obstacles if its more platonic in nature. I mean it is about the art form and not your physical needs.

Here’s where to find them:

1)Art forms – If you’re a painter go to a museum, if you’re a writer go to the library, if you’re a musician go to concerts. Where your art form is celebrated is where you’ll find your muse. And when you find them you’ll become obsessed with their art and level of craft.

2)Just a fan – Sometimes your muse isn’t a creative genius but a lover of the arts. There’s something about them, that fascinates you. Possibly the naive love that comes when not fully comprehending how corrupt your artistic could become. For example Edie Sedgwick was Any Warhol’s muse. She was an innocent bystander that loved his medium and that left Andy mesmerized.

3)Whatever you want – The beautiful thing about art is that it’s a landscape with strong rules, and after you’ve mastered them all, you’re encouraged to break them. The sign of a good muse is one that pushes you to practice your art form. That means it can come in whatever shape or form. You decide what keeps you going. Maybe you’re a painter but your muse is a great composer. Well listen to them as you paint and you’re able to create your own melody of painted rhythm.

How to stay connected to yours

Once you find your muse, don’t ever leave them. They keep you and your art alive. You can stay connected to them in a variety of ways. And obviously it’s dependent on how they exist.

If your muse is an artist research everything you can about them. Experience their art in all of its forms. Devour every little piece of content available. You need to know everything they’ve done and experienced it first hand. Many now have social media accounts or websites and books dedicated to them. Well binge away. This level of research will only allow you to absorb more and more of that delicious fairy dust.

If your muse is just a fan try to spend time with them. Schedule time to meet with them and discuss your art form. Allow yourselves to have delicious conversations and partake in outings where you can experience the art form together. Respect their needs and yours. Sometimes your muse will be your collaborator. Be open to having an evolving relationship and always be honest.

If your muse is something more random, like enjoying a band although you don’t consider yourself a musician, then listen to their music. Enjoy how they exist and welcome that experience into your life here and there. Don’t allow yourself to be detached but know that there will be ebs and flows and that’s just perfect.

No matter how your muse exists be grateful and allow them into your life as much or as little as needed. Sometimes where you are on a project dictates how much you’d like to experience of them.

My personal Muses

My art form is actually two in one. I love to draw and I love to dream up amazing stories. Here are a few of muses that help me create.

1)Telenovelas – I love novelas. Absolutely adore them. The stories are intoxicating and I binge them like a mad woman. There’s a few I’ve seen that have left me mesmerized. There’s La Reina Del Sur, La Casa De Papel, Las Chicas De Cable, Velvet… What novelas do for me is it gives me a reason to dream. It leaves me drooling for more and that captive state is what drives me to try to create my own stories. Never underestimate a good telenovela.

2)Modern Charlie Chaplin – Why do people love Lin Manuel Miranda, Ali Wong and Shonda Rhimes? It’s because they’ve created their own opportunities. There are countless people like this and hearing them talk about their stories gives you comfort in knowing what’s possible. There’s nothing more powerful than someone who is hell bent on getting their story told.

3)Museums – What a magical place. Looking at art tells you what someone has seen and experienced in their lives. A picture could bring you to tears once you’ve understood the level of vulnerability it took for them to share their story. Recently I was looking at Jaune Quick-to-See Smith’s art at the Whitney Museum and there was one painting who’s story completely shocked me. From a distance it looks like real spoons on a canvas with a washes of beautiful blue and greys. From a distance it sparkled. The painting is called “Rain” and it represents how these lands were being harmed due to acid rain because of the steel mills. The use of fossil fuels harms the land and allows these owners to produce items like steel spoons that help them to create a class system. It leads to environmental harm but financial privilege.

4)Music – Recently I’ve been listening to high frequency music while writing my book and it’s been such a form of support for me. Then there are other times where I need to listen to something that reminds me of the scene I’m trying to write or the visual I’m trying to draw. I swear all art forms conspire together in an effort to make us feel whole.

5)Books – When you find a good book you stop your life to live theirs. I remember when I first discovered Harry Potter my mother was genuinely concerned about me. I discovered the books one summer and all I did was eat, shower and read. She didn’t understand how I could just spend my days with my nose in a book. However that was one of the most blissful summers I’ve ever had in my life. It’s like having an affair. Misunderstood by society and intimately intoxicating.

6)Nature – Who doesn’t think clearer when they’re looking at water or plants? Spending time outdoors gives you a level of pieces that helps you recharge. It’s this fresh mind that you need most when creating something new. Personally I need to go down to river to give thanks and then return to my work.

Muses can live in a multitude of areas. There’s no limitations to where, how or what they can do for you. The important thing is to try to incorporate them into your life. If you do this, you’ll live such a lavish lifestyle.

This post is all about muses.

We don’t really know much about dreams. Sure people try to dissect them and look up their meanings but overall we don’t know where they come from. Also we don’t really know if they really mean anything. It’s up to the person that is experiencing them to define their purpose.

As a creative person, I see dreams as a portal to another realm. One that helps you discover yourself and the meaning of life. It’s where you can participate in making magic and living a life with no boundaries. In dreams, you discover thoughts and places that exist within you. It reveals things you didn’t know about yourself. So obviously I view dreams as a pot of gold and I work every day to help them cross the rainbow and rejoin me and my reality.

In this post I’ll talk about how to get yourself into that lucid state where you’re able to dream, how to capture your vision and how to make sense of it. After these steps you can incorporate them into your artistic medium of choice. Mine is writing and drawing.

How to dream

If you’re not a lucid dreamer this is for you. The below suggestions may help you trigger some awesome dreams.

1) Music – Pick a song. One that you love. Then try closing your eyes while you’re listening to it. And imagine that you are in a music video. Heck, you don’t even have to be in what you see. But allow the music to paint pictures. If it’s a song that played during a specific part of a movie then maybe that’s where the music takes you. You’re not trying to control the daydream. You just merely want to experience it and that means surrendering yourself to a level of disbelief.

2)Guided Meditation – One of the brilliant things that YouTube has to offer is it allows you to try a practice that is outside what we’re accustomed to. Meditation is not something I grew up knowing about and when I hear people talk about it, I don’t really understand it. The idea of sitting in silence with no thoughts crossing my mind feels nearly impossible. But what does seem possible and what I do regularly with love is a guided meditation. There are hundreds of videos on YouTube that afford you this experience.

In a guided meditation you close your eyes and the speaker walks you through different visuals that you need to imagine. Sometimes you’re in a crystal cave, sometimes you’re near the ocean or it’s something else. With practice, these images will become clearer and clearer. And the amazing thing about guided meditations is that sometimes you get to ask questions and the answers can be very surprising.

3)Movies – When you watch a movie you’re transported to a different time and place. Obviously. Allow yourself to become completely engrossed in the film. My favorite question to ask after seeing a movie is, “Who was I in that movie?” That question breaks the barrier between the movie and myself being separate. I allow it into my world and imagine that I’m one of the characters. That world then quickly becomes a reality I visit in my dreams.

4)Good Sleep – If you cannot sleep. You cannot dream. There are a lot of studies on sleep and what needs to be done in order to get a good night’s rest. A practice that I’ve currently been doing is to power down every night before I sleep. Once 8 p.m. hits I am off my phone, computer, and tv. For the next two hours I shower the day off of me, journal, and read. This boundary has allowed me to feel refreshed every day. Also, other factors that contribute greatly to your sleeping pattern are eating nutritious foods, not drinking caffeine close to your bedtime, exercising to release stress and daily I check in with myself to make sure that I’m putting myself first in this life.

5)Looking for it – Finally sometimes you need to look for your dreams. Sometimes you close your eyes and nothing happens. So what do you do? You try to imagine yourself or someone you fancy or an environment you’d like to visit. Sometimes you may look for an activity that you enjoy. Like maybe you’re a swimmer and you imagine yourself swimming in your dreams. Well, what happens there? You’re developing your skill while your sleeping and you’re enjoying your dream. Eventually, you won’t always have to look for your dreams but this is an awesome way to get started.

Catching the Dream

Horray you’ve had some awesome dreams. Well, what do you do now?

1)Journal – Writing down what you just saw and experienced is a great way to capture your dreams. However, you literally need to have your journal right next to you. Time and energy are everything in the early morning hours. The last thing you want is to lose your thought because you got distracted while you were looking for your book. Also, this is a moment to jot down random thoughts and images. Do not worry about articulating yourself in a clear and concise way. You literally just woke up and no one is going to read this but you.

The important thing is to write something down. Sometimes it’ll make sense and sometimes it won’t. But practice makes perfect. So don’t judge, just get it down.

2)Voice Memo – Let’s say you don’t want to write first thing in the morning. Not a problem. Neither do I. So use your phone. Every phone has a voice memo application. Take that baby out and tell it everything you’ve just experienced. This will be hilarious to listen to later and sometimes you’ll be able to write it down and create something that is truly inspiring.

These practices are meant to get you connected and aligned with your dreams. Just remembering a dream is an amazing feat so celebrate it by capturing it.

Bringing your dreams into your creative practice

Once you have an amazing dream and you capture its essence then you need to give it feet to stand on. And that takes a bit of creative exploration.

1)Storyboard – What finally allowed me to bring my visions into reality was the process of creating snapshots. I took index cards and drew each vision down. Sure it’s important to have as much detail as possible written into something like a diary but when you want to marry it with other ideas, you have to make it more accessible. At the end of the day, any vision or idea you have in life is coming from you and you have to define what the connection is. And many times they hold connections between each other.

After you’ve illustrated each vision, no need for perfection only you need to know what it means, spread them across the floor or a large table. Does one lead to the other? Did one event cause another to occur? Put them in an order that makes sense to you. This maybe the beginning moments of you putting a story together.

2)Speak the idea out loud – You ever realize how sometimes you write something down and you miss words? It’s because our minds are faster than our hands. Our minds aren’t always as naturally composed grammar abiding citizens and that’s a beautiful thing. Creativity is madness. It needs to be released and sometimes the paper and pen stifles our voice in a way our mouths could never.

Share your idea with a nurturing and trustworthy soul. If you don’t have one at the moment, no worries. Speak it out loud to yourself and record it. You’ll find pathways that are ripe for exploring.

Never Forget

No matter your dream or your creative journey, don’t ignore it’s importance. You were given that vision for a reason and it was not for it to die with you.

You know they say the richest place in all the world is a cemetery. It’s because of the countless ideas and dreams that never made it into reality. Isn’t that a tragedy? Humanity deserves to hear your vision and you owe it to yourself to fulfill your destiny.

Magic is not just for the land of Disney but for all of the world. It is your duty as a citizen of the world to be brave. And the amount of freedom and release you receive after completing such a vulnerable task will be more rewarding than any service you could ever perform. I felt like I had a phantom child for years. All these creative babies that were scolding me for not bringing them into this world. Now that I’m in the process of editing my first collection of stories I couldn’t be prouder of myself. And the funny thing is new babies are now popping out, along with some other I’ve been carrying for years.

Sometimes I feel silly with this building obsession to organize all of the visions I’ve ever had into some sort of story but then I think I do so much for others, why not do something for myself.

 

If I knew that writing a book was just editing and not capturing this beacon of light, I would have started a long time ago.

I recently sent over a draft of my first three stories to an editor and it took years for it to come together. Literally, I’ve been pregnant with this phantom child since 2016. Well, that’s the first time I posted a picture of me writing a draft, but even before that, I was wrestling with the idea. I didn’t know how the images should be manifested. Did I have to write a book? Yes, I did and it took a lot of steps to get there. Honestly, it was discipline and spirituality. I don’t know about anyone else but writing is an incredibly vulnerable and painful experience. It literally felt like I was pulling the skin off my bones for the first few drafts.

So why would I take part in such a horrible activity? Because I didn’t have a choice and that’s where spirituality comes into play. In this blog, I’ll talk about what that process looked like. For anyone that’s trying to write their first book but also so I could document it. I mentioned this started years ago right? Well, I want to document it all before I forget.

Before I started

First, there were the dreams. I’m a very lucid dreamer and I’m one of those dreamers that can’t help but think “Oh that would be a great movie”. I’m also one of those people who think “I rather live in that reality. It’s way better than the real world.” Here and there I would write these visions down in my diary but I didn’t take anything seriously. I just wanted something to look back at and think wow that’s a great story. Or at least a place to revisit my old visions.

Next, there was a bit of testing. I went to acting school after high school and I found myself in a class where I had to write a scene. Well, I wrote one of my visions into a scene and quickly found the teacher to be highly supportive of the story that was in me. It was very flattering but obviously not enough for me to do anything about it. Let alone write a book.

During these first two steps, I was also wrestling spiritually with myself and what kind of creative person I wanted to be. I’ve always wanted to be like Charlie Chaplin. I loved that he did it all and that he was a master of his craft. But I went to a psychic and they told me I would be a producer for tv and film and not an actress. At that time I also felt this need to be accepted in my acting classes. My acting classes didn’t really have people of color. I’m Latina and I felt it.

Don’t get me wrong everyone was always supportive but I quickly saw how my accent and my beauty weren’t appreciated on the same level. That made me feel very small and very angry. So I decided if the world wanted to read or see my stories come to life, it would have to give me the opportunity to act first. Otherwise, it would get nothing.

Eventually, I found myself in California pursuing acting, working at a post-production facility, and feeling accepted but not fully. The hardest thing about acting for me was being praised for my talent by amazing casting directors, while I took seminars, but I could see it on their faces that they had nothing for me. I was even in a master class that I loved and the only advice my teacher could give me was “You just need to work, you just need to get out there.” Please remember this is before DEI became popular and I was lucky to get one audition a month for a Latina girl and the Latina girl parts weren’t always roles that were right for me.

When I officially started writing

Since I was feeling supported and loved by my post-production facility I decided to write down all the visions I had only shared with my diary. This is the first time I was writing and drawing my visions as scenes in a book. Two coworkers got me drawing pads and encouraged me to read Julia Cameron’s “The Artist Way”. That’s the kind of support I was receiving. This is also where I first started working as a receptionist and spent many hours doing nothing. And that killed me, so I filled my time with drafting my story. My coworkers loved my drawings and I let two people read my scenes and they thought the imagery was amazing but they encouraged me to chisel out the plot.

Another thing I was noticing at this time was how lucky I got when I was behind the scenes. When it came to acting, I was lucky if I got cast in a student film. Behind the scenes, back in NY before I moved to LA, I was putting up a theater show and I hosted auditions and this indie actor came into my audition for my small production. This guy had no idea how in love I was with him and his indie film. I had literally decided I wanted to name my first kid after his character’s name years before. Like how does that happen? This guy was everything to me and he came in to audition for me.

Another moment of support that I received, behind the scenes, was when I created my first short film. My first short film was an employee competition. I received a $1,000 budget and I was able to partner with the amazing creative people in my post-production facility. People whose work I’m sure you’ve seen. And I wasn’t able to pay anyone to help and I had all these people volunteering to work on my project. My amazing mentor and my script-writing teacher at the time both said to me “People want to work with you”. It was crazy and overwhelming. That amount of support. I was willing to give the universe a draft of my work after that love.

Unfortunately, I still felt lost on my path and decided to return to New York. It was a decision that came out of nowhere. Usually, I contemplate things to death but there was this split moment where I decided I was done and needed to return to New York and so I did. When I returned I pretty much surrendered to the universe and didn’t want to do anything. I applied for one job and I’m still there now. This phase in my life is dedicated to trusting the universe and going where it blows me. But don’t worry I’m slowly walking into the next phase titled “Taking back my power”.

So there I am. I got an office job and I felt completely useless as a receptionist. Being surrounded by powerful people and not working to my highest potential was completely infuriating. So I returned to college. My last week of school turned into the first week of my life where my job did not consist of me having to man a desk. I pushed myself. I learned a lot. And after a few years of that, I thought how can I work so hard to help others and not help myself?

When you get serious about writing a book

At work, I am incredibly disciplined and hardworking and I’m surrounded by all these go-getters and I think all of that energy jolted me awake. I didn’t just want to be a survivor. It was time to make something happen. I decided I’m done. I’m writing my story. It’s the only thing that matters to me in this world, the ideas still haunt me, and it’s the only thing I would regret if I died tomorrow.

So I listened to all these motivational speakers all the time (Earl Nightingale – “The strangest secret” impacted me the most). I saddled up and maybe four years ago, I started writing drafts of my story before and after work. Then I would take weeks off to edit and write some more. Luckily I captured a picture in the NY library to remind me around when this occurred in my life, April 22, 2019.

At this point, I was taking productive steps but I was still scared of writing a book. So I started blogging. Blogging gave me the habit of having a writing practice and it taught me not to be too precious. You can’t work when things are on a pedestal. They need to be on a table. I was also meeting with a therapist regularly and she encouraged me to redirect some of my energy back into writing my stories. And not allow my blog to distract me from writing my stories. While I was developing these different reiterations of my book I would get them printed at Kinkos and once at Target with my illustrations. Once you have something tangible, it exists and it can’t be ignored. I needed to do this to keep my motivation up.

The problem was I didn’t feel like the plot was fully flushed out and I didn’t know what to do about it. While listening to indie authors on YouTube I discovered this book about how to write a book, “Save the Cat Writes a Novel” and I devoured it. Honestly, that book felt like reading candy. So I took my book apart and cut it into sections.

This is when I realized my first book was actually three different stories. I wrote story one and revised it several times. Next, I wrote story two and revised it several times along with book one. Last I wrote story three and revised it several times with books one and two. Eventually, I stayed with the three stories and edited them several times before finally submitting them to an editor for a manuscript critique. And that’s where my books are now, with an editor. I also had one friend read it before my submission and she read it all in one sitting. That is the greatest compliment I could ever hope to receive. She couldn’t put my book down.

And where am I now? Ready to start my next book. This horrible activity has now become part of my identity.