Books We Love Insider Blog: The Muse Inside (Or How Come I'm Not Locked Up Yet?)

The Muse Inside (Or How Come I'm Not Locked Up Yet?)

People ask why I write or where I get the ideas for what I do write? Well that is a complex question to an author. Anyone ever ask Beethoven why the 5^th symphony and where did that come from? Or did anyone ask Charles Schultz what possessed him to put a beagle on a rooftop with a typewriter and a little birdie as a sidekick?

I’m sure most would reply it’s the muse that whispers to writers and artists inside their heads. Perhaps this is our constructive way of dealing with voices inside our heads, which for most others would get you locked up, sedated and the key thrown away.

I was recently asked why, as a Caucasian do I write novels involving first nations, native gods and legends? The dedication I wrote for my next novel, Thunderbird’s Wake might answer that question.

“In honor and memory of all the ancient native oral storytellers the K’aygang.nga (Haida), and the Sway’ xwiam (Sto:lo) before us. The few whose words were recorded on the carved lips and eyes of the totems and monuments still remaining and have gone on to become the echoes in the forest and the hush of mists sliding along mountain slopes.

Voices that now whisper to the minds of some of us listeners (Gyuu k’iiga) still today.”

I remember in one of my first visits to BC and Victoria, back when I lived in Alberta. I went to the provincial museum and simply stared at the carved totems and log poles there. My wife at the time had wandered off and all I could hear as I stood there by myself was voices. Whispers and tales all around me. I remember asking her, “do you hear those voices in the background?” She thought I was nuts. But all the way back to my campsite and on the journey home I could see the ovoid eyes and the wooden lips whispering.

The Haida mount on most of their totems, three squatting figures, they call the Watchmen, who are meant to watch out for enemies approaching. But I recon they also silently call out to those that hear, those that have the muse inside, “come, tell us about they that dwell under us and listen to the voices of those that have preceded us.”

So later when I heard the bizarre news story about a rare golden spruce tree cut down in protest of logging, the whispers became nudges and twitches of a pencil that couldn’t remain quiet any longer. Guided by ghosts of legends from a culture that only had oral storytellers and no written language. Somewhere in the air all those whispered words circulate and somehow they call to me, from there came the novel, Raven’s Lament. Yeah, maybe like my first wife said, I am nuts. Don’t care, I write; the tales come. Simple. That is what dwells in my soul. Words awaiting to come out.

This spring my next novel to be published by Books We Love, Thunderbird’s Wake, comes out. Another tale of a nuttier man than me that breaks into a penitentiary in order to deal with an awakening god.

That and a native sprite that needs a human to bring justice to her soul.

Have a Great Christmas and to all of those writers reading this.

May the muse reward you with lots and lots of whispers. So keep those pencils sharpened over the holidays.

Sincerely

Frank Talaber

twosoulmates@shaw.ca

Frank Talaber’s Writing Style? He usually responds with: Mix Dan Millman (Way of The Peaceful Warrior) with Charles De Lint (Moonheart) and throw in a mad scattering of Tom Robbins (Even Cowgirls Get The Blues).
PS: He’s better looking than Stephen King (Carrie, The Stand, It, The Shining) and his romantic stuff will have you gasping quicker than Robert James Waller (Bridges Of Madison County).

Or as is often said: You don’t have to be mad to be a writer, but it sure helps.

Writer by soul. Words born within.

Karma the seed. Paper the medium.

Pen the muse. Novels the fire.

My novels on Amazon are at (copy and paste link): https://www.amazon.com/Frank-Talaber/e/B00UC407R0

http://twosoulmates.wix.com/frankt-author-blog

http://www.bookswelove.net/authors/talaber-frank/

https://www.facebook.com/Frank-Talaber-805296946204873/

Twitter: @FrankTalaber

Thunderbird's Wake (out this spring from Books We Love LTD)

A penitentiary is a dangerous place and into the world of the criminal enters a saint. Well, bearing rattles and guardian beasts, the native born find him a saint. To the rest he's more nuts than a squirrels winter stash. There's a god asleep, awakening. Humans that seek justice and a sprite that needs justice from humanity.

So what makes you want to break into one? You can ask Charlie, but he ain't telling. And if he did you wouldn't believe it in a dozen lifetimes. Come enter, the madness this spring.