Friday, March 25, 2011

Of Muse and Men

It doesn't take an alarm clock.  I go to bed, exhausted, some time before 10 PM.  It is stormy outside, and the staccato of the rain soothes me rapidly into unconsciousness.  To sleep...perchance to dream...aye, there's the rub...

Somewhere around 2AM I''m awake again, the siren call having nudged me back into wakefulness, back into touch with the Muse who controls my time and tides, and I find myself once more at the keyboard of the computer, taking dictation from Dubhghall or Stephen or Kevin, or whomever is out there eager to talk, eager to have his story told.   Seldom a woman, seldom anyone whose story is something to which I can relate, can tell the tale from a woman's point of view. 

Often I argue with them, tell them it's ridiculous, they can't have done that, can't say that...and invariably I am told to shut up and take down the dictation I am receiving...I will see why later..  It always turns out that something at which I have scoffed, something I wanted to delete, something that I have thought was an impossible piece of rubbish turns out to be an important plot point, not aleays in the book I am writing, but perhaps in another book down the line.

Last night was no different.  Went to bed at 9:30 PM, and at 2:30 I was up again, plunking away at the computer  till 4:30 AM, turning out pages which took the story in a direction I had no conscious notion it would be going,

C'est la vie. 

I have a Muse who lives on Greenwich Mean Time.  I'm on Pacific Daylight Time.  Somewhere along the line we get together and pages are written.

Sleep is for wimps.