(There is a finder’s fee for whoever can return her safely to me.)
I hadn’t noticed at first, I’m pretty busy doing other things. But when I started thinking about my next blog for the umpteenth time and came up with… nothing, I realized she was gone.
She’s a wonderful muse, but she has her own way, her own place and her own time to do things. So forget about my well planned schedule to post a blog every two weeks. When I sit down to write, there is no telling up front whether she will have taken the day off or not. Only the blank page staring back at me will tell me.
It’s not that I don’t have any topics to write about – I got that covered pretty early on. I followed the advice of a colleague who told me to make sure that you always have a list of about 50 topics ready, so you are safe for the whole year… And so I have a list of about a hundred topics now – easy enough as high level ideas and titles pop up on a regular basis. But what is a title without a bit of inspired substance?
That’s where she normally comes in, my fickle muse. Sometimes she wakes me up real early, because she has decided this is the moment for me to blog. I might not actually get out of bed and start writing, but the story is weaving itself in my mind – as if out of nowhere. It will still need hard work to make it into something I dare publish, but at least the idea is there, the story line. Or she might attack me late at night, just when I had started to doze off, and keep me awake long enough to ensure she has had her say – and I have my story.
But these last two weeks, it seems she is gone. I still wake up early sometimes, but there is no one whispering a new story into my ear. It think I may have started to take her for granted, I probably have been angry with her at times for waking me at such an ungodly hour. Maybe that is why she took off? Either that, or she had some holiday plans she didn’t tell me about.
Either way, if you see her, do let her know I miss her, and just to be on the safe side: that I’ll be less grumpy even when I’m half asleep. I believe we still have some stories to write, together.
Nilah Nilah 