{"id":7974,"date":"2010-12-21T13:52:17","date_gmt":"2010-12-21T18:52:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/?p=7974"},"modified":"2010-12-21T13:52:17","modified_gmt":"2010-12-21T18:52:17","slug":"useful-typos-and-the-voice-of-the-muse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/johnesimpson.com\/blog\/2010\/12\/useful-typos-and-the-voice-of-the-muse\/","title":{"rendered":"Useful Typos, and the Voice of the Muse"},"content":{"rendered":"

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[Video: the “Red Room” scene from the last episode of <\/em>Twin Peaks. I’ve adjusted the starting point to begin at what’s relevant to this post; if you don’t want to watch the whole thing, you can stop it at about 2:04.]<\/em><\/p>\n

I have zero training as a typist, but type pretty fast anyhow just from, well, practice. No doubt someone with real experience would look over my shoulder and wonder why I use my pinkies (or whatever) so seldom, why I make my fingers reeeeeach so much, and so on. It all works out pretty good for the most part… except <\/em>when I’m sort of flying along, tappy-tappy-tappy, and looking at some source material rather than at the screen, and one or more fingers drift just a littttttle bit to one side. What results looks vaguely like English, and if I check the keyboard I can trace it back to see, Oh yes, the left hand got out of sync there<\/em>, or just the index finger or thumb.<\/p>\n

I had one of those moments earlier today. The word I was typing in a comment box: manuscripts<\/em>. What actually came out: nabyscruots<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Which, oddly, fit the context. That’s exactly what the damn things are sometimes. It’s not quite right, this nabyscruot. Maybe if I poke at it a little it’ll turn into a real manuscript.<\/em><\/p>\n

It occurs to me now that this is actually the voice in which The Muse speaks: she doesn’t speak to artists and writers in our native languages, but in a sort of nasal, distended voice which sounds almost like gibberish unless we listen really, really hard*. Which would explain why it’s so difficult to answer the seemingly obvious question, “Where do you get your ideas?”… and so frustrating to try. If we answered honestly, our listener — many times, at least — would have to strain to “get it.” It’s so much easier to speak in metaphors and plainspoken shortcuts, the equivalent of the subtitles in the above video.<\/p>\n

People ask me where I came up with the idea for the book I’m working on now. I tell them, “truthfully”:<\/p>\n