Motley Muse

The muse is back! I don't know where she's been though; she smells like dirt and tar and death. Her suitcase has the disconcerting weight and heft of a human head or small, exotic animal. She dyed her hair blue and she calls me names I can't use here, but at least she's back, if only to show me who's boss in this whole writing business.

One of the things she made clear to me is that using the internet over the years has weakened my creative focus. That's right. She checked off a whole list of things I do regularly that make her crazy and thus withhold inspiration:

--I check my email too frequently.

--I use Google and Wikipedia to research things that at one point I would have left the house for to go to the library, where not only would I engage with the accidental mystery of books, but other people--"you remember people you ungrateful *@$%Q!?" she said, with a condescending scowl.

--I frequent other people's blogs too often, replacing actual conversations with little thoughts left in the comments section.

--She then revised her statement about checking my email. I check my email not just "frequently" but "like someone in the throes of paranoid schizophrenia checks the street for men in black." (And to the person who arrived here by searching for "Scarlet letter alien conspiracy--yes, the letter S will be branded on your back at the next abduction).

--My attention span as a result of internet surfing means that I can only write for about an hour at a time as opposed to the days when I wrote for half a day, or all night.

Muses can be tough, but they're no good at really making good on the consequences. She might leave again, but she'll come back. She's nothing without me.

JPR