Do you ever feel like your muse has abandoned you? Well, maybe that's because you don't have one. Honestly, I believe that my muse is within. It's my subconscious, the universe, the superconscious…whatever.

But just out of curiosity, I looked up the muses. I must have slept through this part of my mythology class, but apparently there were nine. Nine?

Really. And it seems to me that a few of them are a bit redundant.

According to infoplease.com, the following are the nine muses who were goddesses born of Zeus (you know, the head guy) and Mnemosyne (hmm, need a mnemonic for that?).

Calliope was the muse of epic poetry. (Not just any poetry, epic poetry.)

Clio was the muse of history. (This must be how we get those textbooks with creative retellings of history. I think she's been hanging out in Texas lately.)

Erato was the muse of love poetry. (I guess she's as close as I'm going to get to having a muse.)

Euterpe was the muse of music. (Five poetry muses and only one for music? Though most of them sang or played an instrument, so I'm confused.)

Melpomene was the muse of tragedy. (How sad.)

Polyhymnia was the muse of sacred poetry. (Not gonna touch this one.)

Terpsichore was the muse of dance. (A few of the contestants on SYTYCD could use some help from ol' Terpy.)

Thalia was the muse of comedy. (No kidding.)

Urania was the muse of astronomy. (Never would have guessed.)

So apparently the arts back in the day were all music, storytelling, and dance. If you're a painter or sculptor, you're SOL. There's no muse for that. Sorry.

In the end, no matter what we're working on, we can't wait for the muse to whisper in our ear, or provide us with a vision. We make it happen. So, sit down and get started. The rest will fall into place.

And, hey, if a muse does visit you, I'd love to hear about it. If nothing else, it will make a great story.

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