Sir Philip Wrote
The Midnight Writer
Have you ever been about to shut down the laptop for the day and go to bed when a sudden insight into a scene overtakes you, so you think with excitement, well, I’ll just sit down and add that part or make that change, it’ll just take a minute, and then you get into the work in progress, and look up to discover, holy hell, it’s ninety minutes later?
Yes, it’s at once irritating, satisfying, annoying, and exhausting. That damn muse has no sense of time.
Speaking of time, time to write like crazy, at least one more time.
Today’s Theme Music
Here we go. Reference to what is a classic in your personal realm of taste is different from others. Age, era, and where and when you grew up all count into it, right? Other factor play into it. The net, what’s classic in my personal universe is foreign to you, and the reverse applies.
But this is a classic for me. It often streams into my head in conjunction with my muse. Muse might be properly plural here. I have multiple voices in my head. They all might belong to one muse, who likes doing other voices, or an army of muses. I don’t know. I sometimes wonder, when you die, what happens to the voices in your head, like your muses? I believe they go find someone else to reside in.
Here is my classic, a song for my muse. Several have covered it, but the classic for me is Santana, in nineteen seventy. I remember listening it on my little AM/FM clock radio, “with stereo.” Then I had it on vinyl, open reel, cassette tape, and CD.
Here is “Black Magic Woman.”
How It Works
Car appointment today, 12:30, in Medford, down the asphalt river seventeen miles. Wife asks, “Are you going to go do your writing first?” Because this is the standard, this is the norm, this is the way it works. Whatever else, go write. Michael must write. Not writing makes Michael a cranky man.
“Yes,” I answer, “but I need to have some coffee first.” Because this is the standard, the norm, this is the way it works. I must have a cup of coffee to go have my coffee and write.
What were once indulgences are now habits. But come on, that first cup, black and hot, French roast, untainted by milk, cream, sugar or anything else, is awesome. Yeah, it would seem like there’s a chasm between drinking strong, unadulterated black coffee and then indulging in a mocha with four shots of espresso. But I believe – and belief is important – that the coffee pleases my muse, and that helps my writing. Gotta keep the muse happy.
That’s the way it works.
A Writing Cat’s Advice
You’re their muse, my pet.
Just being present helps them
by calming and inspiring them.
A Writing Cat’s Advice
If the muse stays away, take a nap. Sleep well, my pet. Sleep well.
Michael Seidel, writer 