Mysteria, the Muse of Mystery

Gary Corby is one of the Pens' treasured recent finds - a dashing mystery author who hales from Australia. After stalking him all around a recent conference giggling at his accent and trying to become his personal stylists, we finally calmed down and settled for just being his friend and fan.

Gary is some sort of engineer (we think he is, anyway; we were in a wine bar) and our favorite line from his bio is "Despite my technical background, I am actually capable of rubbing two words together to make a sentence." Gary's debut novel, THE EPHIALTES AFFAIR, will be out in fall 2010 with St. Martin's/Minotaur. Learn more about Gary here.


Hi. It's a pleasure to be a guest on Pens Fatales. Sophie tells me today's topic is "The Muse". This is like a red rag to a bull, since I write historical mysteries set in Classical Greece, the home of the original Muses.

These days muse refers to anyone who inspires an artist. Pattie Boyd was the muse for both George Harrison's Something and Eric Clapton's Layla, thus making her, I suppose, a bi-muse.

But that's the modern meaning. Originally the Muses were supernatural beings. If you didn't have a Muse on your side then you were out of luck, inspiration-wise, doomed to create nothing but flat, lifeless work.



There were nine Muses, each providing inspiration for one of Epic Poetry, History, Lyric Song, Tragedy, Dance, Erotic Poetry, Sacred Song, Comedy and Astronomy. Those were the arts and sciences as the Greeks knew them 3,000 years ago.

I imagine that since then each Muse has had to move with the times. So for example Erato was the Muse of Erotic Poetry. What with the wide expansion in the genre, Erato these days is probably run off her feet inspiring all the Harlequin authors.

Euterpe likewise must be totally overworked. She was the Muse of Lyric Song, which exploded into rock 'n roll and pop. Euterpe did an outstanding job with Elvis, The Beatles, and Pink Floyd. I assume she doesn't attend Eurovision and Idol.

You'll notice there was no Muse of Mystery Writing. Does this mean we mystery writers are condemned to be uninspired? Not on the evidence. I'd argue mysteries, science fiction and fantasy have had the most vibrant writing of the last century.

I have an idea that as new art forms are created – ones which don't fit into the job descriptions of the current crew –a new Muse magically comes into being and joins her sisters. There is a Muse of Mystery, but she's a recent birth.

Mysteria is her name (and is in fact a true ancient Greek word taken slightly out of context).

Mysteria's attribute – all the Muses have attributes – is a bloody dagger which she holds in her raised hand. In case you're wondering, Euterpe's traditional attribute is a double flute, but it could use updating to an electric guitar. Erato's attribute is a small lyre. The lyre could use updating too, but although I have several suggestions for a Muse of Erotica, I'm not going there.

Mysteria comes to mystery writers and whispers into their ears the ideas they didn't know they were going to write until they suddenly appear on the page: the cool character who comes from seemingly nowhere; the minor detail tossed in at random, which 100 pages later turns into a major clue; the relationship which seemed minor, until during revision you realize it's what the book is all about.

If my experience is anything to go by, Mysteria the Muse works very odd hours.

Mysteria must creep into my house at night, because an awful lot of my good ideas are with me the moment I wake up. Perhaps more embarrassingly, she seems to hang out in my shower, because that's another place where ideas flow like, errr, water. I have never actually run naked from the shower to the keyboard, but that's because I keep pen and paper by the bed.

Mysteria likes to visit after midnight. She is noticeably absent during daylight hours. It's amazing how often I have written flat, lifeless dross all day long, only for my writing to come alive for no obvious reason the moment midnight ticks by. I can only assume that's the moment Mysteria enters the room, come from an assignment elsewhere (probably Sophie's house).

Sometimes Mysteria stays away for weeks at a time, and when she does it gets lonely.

I know of only one way to coax Mysteria into visiting my head, and that's to write. Mysteria helps those who help themselves by writing even when she's not around. So if you'd like to meet this Muse, sit down and write 50 pages, or 100, or 150. Eventually she'll drop by and whisper in your ear.