By J Todd McMillan
Yeah, yeah, I know . . . You’re not supposed to get cute with the title of a serious article. But that’s part of my muse construction. It’s part of knowing who I am as a writer and knowing where I want to go and who I want my audience to be. I love humor. It’s part of me.
Knowing who you are as a writer will help you choose your muse. Letting the market dictate what you write can end in a winding and confusing trail if you are not driven by the muse that speaks to you. There’s nothing wrong with sampling the market for current popular genres, but don’t let it rule and dictate your craft. If you find a popular trend, use your own personal muse to write toward it. If it’s not a good fit, don’t force it. Otherwise, you may just find yourself lost and frustrated as a writer.
Forget about writing for a moment and ask the question, “What incites me to riot? What melts my cookies and flips my pancakes?” From where do you derive your arsenal of words and feelings? From the deep well of your soul? From antics at work? From friends or family? From experience? From the road of hard knocks? From nature? Politics? It’s literally endless. What springs to mind is likely your muse. Start there and see what you love writing about.
Now ask the million-dollar question, “Why am I doing this?” Is it money? Is it fame? Do you want to educate? Do you want to entertain? Do you have a cause to champion? Is it your hobby and you don’t care about fame or money? Do you want to shine a light to Jesus? Your true motivation will come out of your heart, inspired by your muse.
I write for Jesus, and I don’t care about making money. That’s just me. I’m not saying what your motivation should be. Nothing wrong with earning a living. I’ve given away more books than I will probably ever sell. That little girl with her parents at Wendy’s enjoying her cheeseburger? She’s getting one of my Ackwards Banimals illustrated books and one of my Jesus, What Should I Do? books for free. Earning the smile and pointing to Jesus are all I care about.
By finding and listening to your authentic muse, your writing will be authentic and your audience will sense it. Not everyone is your audience. Writers must get used to that. Be comfortable with that. Accept your differences and love them. They are what make you unique as a writer.
Your muse will define your writing. If nature is your muse, you will love to write about camping and backpacking and mountain biking and kayaking. If history is your muse, you will revel in writing historical fictions, maybe biographies of famous people from the past or maybe about world wars.
The worst thing we can do is let fate choose our muse. You will end up with a style that is incoherent. Your readers want to depend on you for a certain amount of predictability You can adventure off the path experimentally, but not so far that you lose your following. Take your time. Seek and pray about what you love . . . what inspires you. When you find your true muse you will know it because your writing will flow. Words will naturally fall into place. Creativity you didn’t know you had will course through your veins and onto paper.
J Todd McMillan’s goal is to creatively challenge and stimulate learning, fun, abstract thought, and parental interaction in his children’s picture books. Todd resides in Camas, Washington, with his awesome wife of four decades, three adult children, two grandchildren, and two grand puppies. Todd will teach a coaching class, “Indie Publish Your Children’s Book,” at the 2026 Cascade Christian Writers Summer Conference, June 15–17 in Canby, Oregon. Registration details here.
