You open ten documents, each labeled with the title of a story you need to write.

Then you sit there for who knows how long, just staring at the first empty page. Beginning a story has never been very hard for you, but you want to start this one right. Make it unique. Special. You know what perspective you’re going to use, how long the story will be, even the entire plot and point. But for some reason you can’t figure out how to write it all down. Every opening line that comes to your mind is flat and boring. You want to do this idea justice! But it feels like something is missing. What are you missing?

You can’t be sure. Your mind answers ‘comprehension’, your heart answers ‘passion’, your subconscious answers ‘vision’.

But they’re all wrong. You have each and every one of these things. Yet for some reason your Muse is silent.

What is a Muse anyhow? Picture a house built at the intersection of three cross-roads. One of the roads is named Vision, another Passion and the third Comprehension. Now, these three Talents of your being can flit along their separate roads all they like, but if they don’t all meet in the House at the center of the cross-roads, nothing is going to happen.

This is Muse. The place wherein your Talents meet. If you only have Comprehension and Vision, you can think up an amazing story, but it won’t go anywhere. If you only have Passion and Vision, you can dream up a feeling, but without Comprehension, that is all will ever be. If you only have Comprehension and Passion, you are at the starting point of something wonderful, but without Vision, you’ll stay there for good.

So all three need to meet in your Muse, and once they have joined hands around the central pillar of that house, then the story-telling begins.

Do you have Vision?

Yes, I have vision, for I can see where this story will go.

Do you have Comprehension?

Yes, I have comprehension, for I know what I want to say and how I want to say it.

Do you have Passion?

Yes, I have passion, for I believe this story is worth telling.

Then what are you waiting for?

The Talents’ flint upon their steel: Inspiration for Vision; Thought for Comprehension; and Decision for Passion. The sparks are struck, the fire catches-

And the three Talents join hands around the central pillar.