This post is part of my series, Courting the Muse. Subscribers to my email list receive a weekly prompt focusing on one aspect of creativity.

This week’s prompt: “No mud, no lotus.” Thich Nhat Hanh.

Part 1: Cue the Violins

This is a sorry tale of how I wrote and lost a blogpost. How I spent hours crafting EVERY SINGLE WORD only to wake up and discover POOF it was gone! All my hard work banished to the depths of WordPress Hell. Which is a real place.

It’s also a tale of redemption. How I figured out the problem and wrote the post again. Same but different. Like an Aesop’s fable of blogging with a moral and happy ending.

Read on.

The setup

I stayed up well past midnight last night, forgoing my beauty sleep (and thus my beauty) because the blogging Muse was hot. I mean, she was cooking.

There was no way I could deny her as she led me on a merry creative chase involving Rothko, puddles and One Eye Fred. Together we spun a (mostly true) yarn involving Fred’s old beater car, the one with the bashed in fender and missing headlight on the passenger side because they don’t call him one eye for nothin’.

Truth-they don’t call him one eye at all. I just made that part up.

I wrote about Maggie and me being alone out on a one lane country road. Carefully set the scene with gravel, puddles, ruts and rural isolation. A Dueling Banjos vibe.

I wrote about hearing the car before seeing it. Knowing it was coming fast. And the existential crisis faced–safety on the left with the risk of tumbling down a steep ravine. Or safety on the right involving a mad scramble up a steep embankment while hauling a 70+ pound dog who may or may not have a different opinion. And could possibly stop to sniff something and get us both squished like a couple of bugs.

It was drama, Sheer drama. A page turner if blogs had pages. Especially the part about Fred hauling ass around the curve. How he gripped the wheel, face thrust towards the windshield NEVER SEEING US as he raced past.

Of course not. We were on his blind side.

And how Maggie and I continued on our way. Just another walk in the woods.

Part 2: Meeting up with Rothko (as I remember it)

I wrote about Maggie and I heading home after the third driveway and before the steep hill. How there was nothing to photograph or inspire because the heavy gray clouds sucked all the light and shadow from the trail.

I wrote about how even the Muse wasn’t very muselike until she halfheartedly nudged me towards some tire tracks in the mud.

 Tire tracks in the mud? PUH-LEEZ But these were also track puddles so maybe…

I pulled out my phone, zeroed in on the tracks and magic happened in the viewfinder!

ROTHKO! I found Rothko in the mud!

Really, doesn’t that look like a Rothko to you?

And then I wrote about hurrying home, all smug knowing that I would paint a little Rothko. Which I did, sorta. On a much smaller scale in pastel on top of an old watercolor. Because I suck at watercolor.

And then I wrote about turning it around, because I’m an abstract painter and that’s what I do. I turned it around and Rothko became more Guardians

I think this makes it official now, Guardians will become a series. I get a good feeling from them, like we all need someone watching out for us these days.

I’m building up quite a little body of work from these prompts. If you’re on my list you’ll be the first to know when I release the collection, all cleaned up, professionally photographed and ready to go.

And if you’re not on my list–well, why aren’t you?

As alway, I’d love to hear from you. You can share your thoughts in the comments below.