Let this image engage your muse. Write a paragraph, a short story, a poem, a memory, a journal entry…or whatever you feel inspired to create. And share your creations in the comments if you’d like!
STOP STRANGLING YOUR MUSE!
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Herd your Inner Critics into a soundproof room,
Send your Procrastination Monster whimpering back to his cave,
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Strangling My Muse 
I’ve had some problems with my muse in recent times so haven’t been playing as much with your photo prompts. But I hope I’m back. My muse has taken on a slightly different form and has inspired this piece. I hope it’s sufficiently watered-down from it’s original to be appropriate 🙂
ORANGE SHUTTERS OF SPRING
The weather is warming up and I’m starting to feel alive again. It’s been months since I’ve been able to visit my lover’s home and the loneliness has been painful. Not only the longing for his voice but for the strength of his arms wrapped around my body. Oh how I have longed to have my bed warmed by his company. But alas, I have slept alone all winter waiting for the snow to melt and free his mountain home from its icy grip.
I have been walking for hours, having left my horse in the barn of a friend lower on the snow-covered slopes. The trail from here is icy and treacherous. No hoofed beast would safely make this journey and I would not wish to harm my steed in the interest of the lust that fills me.
All around me is white but the worst of the snow has melted. The blizzards that gripped the mountain these past months have blown away and the sun is shining above me. With my telescope I can just make out the orange shutters on my lover’s bedroom window. Far away up the mountain, still some hours trudge he awaits me.
I know he will light the fire to keep our naked bodies warm in the darkness of the night and that he will have a simple hot meal of stew on the stove with bowls and spoons ready should we need it. For tonight there will be no time for cooking or sitting down to a meal. We have been apart these months with nothing but our memories to keep us warm. Tonight I can wait no longer and I must trudge through the snow to meet my man.
The hours have passed quickly. Not once did I stop for rest nor food. No, I have walked this march through the snow at a steady pace; never wavering in my course. And now I am below them: the orange shutters that signify the start of spring. I see he has wiped them clean to shine as a beacon for me this cold white day. And now I am here, at the base of the steps to his door.
I run. No longer caring for my safety because I need his arms around me. I need his lips on mine and his breath on my skin. I call out to my lover. He doesn’t come to the window. Instead, he throws open the door and I see him standing in all his glory. It seems I am not the only one who has felt the long frozen months of winter. I take the final steps at a gallop and throw myself into my lover’s arms. Before I know it we are embraced and warm; safely away from the winter’s hold.
Thanks for sharing this, herby! I can’t help but see a connection between you having some problems with your muse and your character feeling the recent separation from — and now a reconnection with — her lover.
~Sandy
As I took a look at the picture, Photo Prompt #27 gave me a good shake. The picture looked like an overview of my life – like the support (the reminder of lots of the windows nearby/the proof of my being not alone) and the warning about the danger to close in myself and thus to encounter just the reality of the eyeless – the dreams without any response …
Art of Butterfly in Plaster
That’s beautiful, Tomas! Thanks for sharing it.
~Sandy