When the Muse Goes AWOL (And Takes Your Sanity With Her)

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You know those Instagram posts where writers are perfectly framed in a sunbeam, cradling a latte in an aesthetically pleasing mug, hair cascading in beach waves, gazing pensefully at their laptop like they're about to birth the next Great American Novel?

Yeah. Today is not that day.

It's 5 AM. I've been up since 2:30, doing the grandbaby shuffle so mom can get a few precious hours of sleep. You know the shuffle, right? That squat-bounce-sway combo that would make a CrossFit instructor weep with pride? My quads are screaming. I'm basically doing lunges every forty-seven seconds because the binky has become a tiny rubber projectile with a personal vendetta against my sanity.

Spit. Fuss. Squat. Retrieve. Insert. Stand. Repeat.

I'm pretty sure I've done more reps this morning than I did in all of 2024.

And my hair? My hair has achieved what can only be described as "sentient cotton candy that lost a fight with an electrical socket at 2:30 in the morning." There's no coming back from this. This is its life now.

The words on the screen are doing that fun thing where they rearrange themselves when I'm not looking. "The protagonist walked to the door" somehow became "The door protagonisted to the walk." I've read the same sentence nine times and I still don't know what it says. The letters are just... vibing. Making shapes. Mocking me.

I've been staring at my outline—you know, the one I spent three weeks perfecting? The one that was going to save me from plot holes and character inconsistency?

It's garbage. Complete and utter garbage.

So at 4:43 AM, fueled by cold coffee and desperation, I made an executive decision: we're throwing her out. The whole thing. Starting over. Because apparently, in the pre-dawn hours, with Einstein hair and aching thighs and a grandbaby who thinks sleep is a conspiracy, is the PERFECT time to completely restructure my entire novel.

This is fine. Everything is fine.

And in approximately two hours, I need to somehow transform into a functional human being for my day job. You know, the one that requires things like "coherent sentences" and "not looking like I just survived a cage match with a three-month-old."

I'm not sure I have the brain power for pants today, let alone actual work.

But you know what? This is writing. Real, unglamorous, 2:30-AM-quad-burning, beautiful disaster writing. This is showing up when showing up means you're running on fumes and spite and the desperate hope that eventually, EVENTUALLY, everyone in this house will sleep at the same time.

The muse will come back eventually. She always does.

Probably right when my alarm goes off.

Now if you'll excuse me, I now smell a diaper that is likely to bring tears.

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