One of the best things you can do to fuel your inner writing muse is to engage in other artistic pursuits. It doesn't really matter what they are. They won't "take away" from your writing; they will enhance your writing, give it depth, or, in my case, it weirdly helps me to plot and organize.
I quilt. I recognized a long time ago, that when I'm in the trenches, plotting a book, I do piecework quilts.
When I'm editing and polishing, like I'm doing with DL right now, I like to sew panels like these.
In a weird way, they complement each other, quilting and writing.
Planning a piecework quilt is a lot like writing a first draft. You have to pay excruciating care to where you're headed, in order to get there with all your seams matching up. Get a 1/10th of an inch off, consistently, and the consequences ripple through the rest of the quilt. It's off, and you'll notice it, forever. Sure, there are ways you can cut and piece the fabric together so the flaw is disguised, but as the artist...you'll always know the flaw there.
I have a "His" and "Hers" Dia de los Muertos calavera duvet cover that I spent years working on (many of the same years I worked on DL) only to spot a few flaws that I just can't ignore when it's on the bed. It only comes out one time a year -- October.
When working on a panel, it's more like adding the finishing touches, the "texture" to a preprinted, or finished, image. My stitches make the piece of cloth jump at the viewer and say, "Hey, I'm cool! Touch me."
When I'm not quilting, oddly I'm also not writing. I've learned to indulge -- balance? -- the two artistic pursuits. One feeds the other.
Find your inner muse, and indulge it. Your writing will be better for it.
