My muse visited again the other night. I don’t know why she comes in the middle of the night, or when I’m in the shower or walking the dog. When she arrives, it’s usually to hand me an idea, sentence or opening paragraph for a story that I’d been searching for. If I’m in bed, it’s impossible to roll over and go back to sleep. When she arrives it’s not all dreamy, like on fairy wings, but in a Mustang convertible going from zero to 75 on the highway. My mind races, jumping from whatever it was that woke me up in the first place to the other things I’m working on that day or the stories I’m thinking about pitching next, the laundry I have to do, and all my other chores.
I know if I don’t do anything I’d wake up the next morning and not remember the idea or sentence or inspiration that work me. So at 3 a.m. I turn on the light and reach for the red-covered journal I keep next to my nightstand. And write.