DISMUSED!

TODAY I am faced with something interesting. My lustfully muse-filled emotions - that feeling of bliss when one is in love – are settling down.

Last evening I had a perplexing sort of "turn-off" experience that one would think would have been, I dare say should have been, the polar-opposite. It all started innocently enough when I checked my email. I was suddenly and delightfully besieged with a lengthy list of interesting tidbits on my Logan-muse, talented British actor Sean Bean. Nothing out of the ordinary here. Presently, there is a lot on him owing to the UK release of his latest movie, OUTLAW.

This is as good a place as any to interject that I had discovered him several months ago and become ensorcelled and bean-mused without even realizing it. (Cheap play on words, I know, but cut me some slack; it was right there. I had to do it.) The main character for my story, BEHIND THE WALL, finally came to life and spilled out of my imagination and onto the keyboard within days, requiring very little applied effort on my part. He suddenly had a soul and I would never, for one minute, deny that Bean gets full credit for that inspiration. He has indeed been a wonderful muse. No let downs there I can assure you. Handsome and rugged with a voice that is soft and smoky and warm all the way down, he lingers just on the steamy side of delicious! From that first moment when I sat bolt upright in my bed and raced to the keyboard in the depths of night to introduce Logan to the rest of the personae, this man has been on my mind. Rest assured this does not mean more than that. I am not the celebrity-crushing, forum-joining, blogging type. He simply made his way into my head and inspired a book. (Nice little feather for his thespian cap, eh?) Having no real clue about this man of whom I'd never heard and have now learned, to my utter surprise, has been around for the last twenty-something years, (I need to get out more...) I wanted to see more of him. But what to do! I set myself up at IMDb and have been no less than stunned at his lengthy resume! While there I was offered an option to "Google” him. I did. (Sounds playfully naughty, doesn't it?)

It seems Google will email you new information as it hits the Internet on any subject in which you may have an interest. If you click on this option, you need do nothing more. Now I, being a sap for the easy way to do anything, opted in to the Sean Bean Google Alert in hopes of locating and possibly downloading the perfect musable photos of him. To that end, I have successfully printed out two outstanding shots of him. They are strategically perched on my storyboard even as I write this.

Additionally, I have learned that he had appeared in LORD OF THE RINGS - as Boromir, no less – (Stop rolling your eyes; it’s not attractive.) I freely admit to knowing that I may well be the one person who had not seen it. But hear me out; I’d completely resisted viewing it because I have so deeply loved and cherished my own heady creative interpretations inspired by Tolkien's masterpiece books. I was more than a little put off by the idea of anyone's unwelcome, special effects laden, hollywoodesque interpretations interfering with my wonderful childhood hiding place. Suffice it to say that I can now add crossing that bridge and having a wonderful experience doing so to the list of things for which Mr. Bean's sudden appearance in my life gets all the credit. (Should I write him a Thank You?) Now that I have seen it, I cannot believe that I refused so adamantly to view it, in spite of its intermittent varying, which I have now come to embrace. (**Such a stubborn refusal on my part is sacrilegious, especially given that LOTR also boasts among its cast members my most highly favored, revered actor, Ian McKellen, as Gandalf. But I digress.)

The point I am attempting to make is that I was happily moving forward, writing my little heart out, ecstatically becoming hopelessly engrossed in what I believe to be the finest thing I have ever written. Last evening, suddenly and without warning, it came to a screeching halt for reasons that astound and bewilder me.

I'd opened my email to find a lengthy list of Google alerts for my muse. Rubbed my hands together in anticipation of finding that one elusive, perfect photo for which I'd been longing and clicked to open. Eureka! There amongst the proverbial ashes I did indeed find it. Perfect. Exactly what I am looking for. Time to close and disable the alerts. But there was so much more listed and I am compelled to admit, I mean, uh, confess that morbid curiosity, well, to be brutally honest it was an embarrassing sort of slimy internet voyeurism that beckoned me to continue. (What is it they say about curiosity and a certain cat?)

Nothing dangerous to start... some news items about the release of OUTLAW; too many links to interviews and reviews, both written and video. Don't need to spend time on those. (I tend to go out of my way to avoid interviews by actors, preferring to simply enjoy the magic…) There were old items about other features; bloggers' wisdom on same; male and female opinions and adolescent rantings over all his, let us politely say: attributes... It does boggle the mind what some people will write for all the world to see. (Would we call that a bloggin' boggle?) I continued along, occasionally shaking my head, occasionally giggling as I unceremoniously nodded along in solidarity, acknowledging shared fantasies with his many fans, some of which were tantalizingly explicit, some grotesquely so. What the hell, I reasoned with myself, This is entertainment at its finest; real stuff by real folks. Who has not ever had such thoughts about an actor or actress with whose character one had fallen madly in love, or lust as the case may be? Nothing wrong with that; it's perfectly normal, healthy even. I encouraged myself to continue...

"SLASH... WARNING: EXPLICIT. Bean/..." was how it read. My first instinct was to shut the email down; delete it.

While I freely admit to having had such thoughts about Bean, even put them into print between my lead characters, Logan and Cassie, within the realms of their own bedroom role-play/fantasy exploits, I have never taken the plunge into the boldly explicit. What will it be like, I wondered, how far will it go? Clearly, what was offered here would be a fictionalized account (as opposed to that which I had already been reading: mere admissions of having had subjective sensual fantasies about Monsieur Bean.) THIS, on the other hand, would be blatant, wanton sex; the actual revealing of the fantasy itself sprawled across my screen. The resulting assailing thoughts coupled with my own now rampant fantasies were beyond seductive. I did not delete the email.

I paused, stood, walked away, meandered into the laundry room, fussed about for a bit...

Slowly, cautiously, I made my way back to the computer and opened up the link. (I often wonder if men realize the unparalleled sexual excitement a woman relishes from the occasional male/male fantasy. Can they have even the remotest clue? I suspicion they think this idea of same sex fantasy, albeit female/female, is exclusively theirs, but I shall examine that likelihood another time, possibly in essay form.) I jumped in with right hand planted steadfastly in a death grip upon my mouse at the ready to close it down in an instant should I find it all too much for my now overly stimulated, out of control sensual psyche. (I thought it a necessarily safe place for my right hand to be.) Did I really need to see this man in this light? (Steve has already been blessed, or sexually harassed and abused as the case may be, with the ramifications of muse-lust after I have written a particularly steamy and/or romantic scene involving Logan and Cassie. He has stated emphatically on more than one occasion that if he ever meets Sean Bean he does indeed have two words for him: THANK YOU! Steve is so together, isn't he? What a guy, huh? But, what of this? Dare I get into this? Could I stand it; could Steve handle me if I did? Have mercy! I had worked myself up to the point of no return just thinking about the likely resulting aftermath before I'd even begun to read.)

- - - - - - - - - - -

Oh my darlings, I have flown too close to the sun and lost my muse.

I did not listen to my gut instinct, choosing instead to play with fire and I foolishly allowed myself to be ushered where I should never have gone. "Explicit" does not cover what I read. It was extreme; too extreme for me. I do not know how to describe what happened to me as I read along. It was literally a one-moment-excited-utterly-turned-on / next-moment-gone-too-far kind of thing. Snap! My muse was gone. (And I have the unmitigated gall, the extreme audacity to feel somehow violated.)

I had thought to enhance my own male/male fantasy involving someone whom I perceived to be an alpha-male and was instead introduced to the alternate point of view: that the idea of him as alpha-male is the fantasy, indeed the grand deception. It all rang too loud. Too loud... No beating me up, here. Please understand, I have no turn-off issues with homosexuality. On the contrary, as I have already explained, it is at times quite the opposite. (Now for the obligatory apologetic letmeexplain: I am a relatively non-imposing, non-judgmental woman who sees everyone as a loving morsel of God Itself, to be cherished. Wasn't that pretty?) Additionally, this is not in any way a reflection on Sean Bean. I don't know his personal business and I don't care to know, sexual or otherwise. He is an accomplished, outstanding actor and I ask nothing more from him than more (much more) in that arena. Please, God! The only bearing all this has here is in its significance to how it relates to muse: If Logan is not who I think he is, my story takes another road, a whole new road, with twists and bumps I had not anticipated.

Dammit! It's all taken up residence in my head now...

Whether or not I am going to be able to manage this does not look promising; when I'd read all that I could stand, instead of seeking out my own resident alpha-male for some hot'n steamy, I nestled into bed next to him and… went to sleep. Not a good sign. Not a good sign at all... (The logical question here in its simplest form is: Why didn't I stop reading it? I have no answer for that... well, except to say that perhaps I was hoping that the sensual attraction that had been so strong would re-awaken before the conclusion, but the bare bones truth of it is I cannot know for sure. What I do know is that the analytical side of me will be beating this to death in the weeks to come. Have I expressed myself in expletives yet?)

How I will continue to write Logan without his soul or, I should say, the soul I had imagined for him, I do not know. I have never been so challenged and I am desperately afraid of where this will go. I do not know if I can write it at all. I approached my office this morning with the trepidation and disdain of a child taking a slow walk to the principal's office.

I have no interest to write it at all.

There is nothing.

Nothing...

Oh, lamentable day! Has all of what I have already written been for naught? Are Logan and Cassie to disappear forever, unfinished?

I have experienced writer's block before, but this... this is something else.


- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

In BEHIND THE WALL, Cassie, who like most women is prone to the occasional premonition, laments to Logan that she has had a dream in which Jamie is standing right in front of her but she cannot sense his physicality, nor can she get to him, touch him. It’s as though there is a barrier between them. In desperation, emboldened by her love for him, she forces herself through the barrier which then smashes like glass into a million glittering pieces. What should have become a misty romantic interlude instead turns to horrific nightmare when Jamie himself also shatters and disappears. In his stead, just beyond where he had been standing, she sees the shadowy figure of a faceless man, devoid of voice, scent, body language or luster.

Seems I have, in writing this passage, had a premonition of my own...


Regretfully dis-mused in New Jersey,
Carol Marsella

Library/Excerpts: BEHIND THE WALL