Inspiration
Inspiration
Pshaw, I say. Inspiration is like puberty; it strikes when it's least convenient.
A good writer will always have a notebook with them to scrawl a hasty line or two. That notebook can be an actual paper tablet, the back of a receipt, an index card, or a phone. Keep it handy for when inspiration strikes, we're told.
But inspiration, my muse anyway, likes to time dropping her sparkling bon mots for the shower, or the middle of the night when turning on a light will not only spell the end of my sleep but will annoy my partner and the dog (neither of whom you want to have annoyed with you).
I woke up one night with a terrific idea for a short story. I was so afraid of losing it I stumbled in the dark to my desk and, without turning on a light, wrote a few words and the opening line. Confident I had done the right thing I went back to bed. In the morning I raced to my office to read my reminder of the great idea. When I was around 4-years-old I once scribbled with a pen on a piece of paper in imitation of the cursive writing I had seen. I asked my mother to tell me what I had written. She had no more clue back then than I did that morning in my office. The amalgamation of loops and block letters congealed in a Frankensteinian patchwork that rose up and destroyed the brilliant idea it was meant to protect. Fortunately, the mere act of writing the note served the purpose. I was able to recall the germ of what roused me the night before. I rewrote the note and later the short story. Four rejections later it was accepted and published by an editor who told me it was her favorite in the anthology.
I let that be a lesson to me.
In realization that inspiration strikes when it is inconvenient, I vow to my muse to accept and expect to be inconvenienced. If she deigns to gift me with her whispers, I will make every effort to record her words no matter the cost to my sleep, my hygiene, or my dog's good opinion of me.
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