“Oh, Great Muse, who has inspired the creators through the aeons, settle over me and guide these hands to tell the story you would have me tell …”
“Oh, please stop.”
“Wait, what?”
“You’re making me throw up in my mouth, and not just a little bit.”
“Great Muse?”
“Who did you think you were calling, Louis Armstrong?”
“I don’t know who that is.”
“No, you don’t, do you, and that’s part of the problem, innit?”
“You don’t have to be mean.”
“Oh yes, child, yes I do. You think you can just plop yourself down, invoke a Muse you ignored for months, and get the goods right away? Are you really that stupid?”
“There’s no need to be rude.”
“Yes, actually there is. I’ve been nice and sweet and inspiring, and none of those approaches are working. So you know what? F—- you, man. F—you and your ‘Oh Great Muse’ bulls—- I’m outta here.”
There followed a long, deep silence, and then the writer said, “Huh.”
And off he went to take a nap. While he was sleeping, someone else wrote the story.