Guest Blogger–Liz Johnson on ‘The Muse’

My muse* is a pest—an incredibly annoying pain in the butt. She comes knocking on my door at the worst possible times. There I am snug as bug in bed, covers up to my chin, lights off, and sleep nearly reached.

“Hey! Hey, Liz! Wake up! I have an idea.”

I open one eye and look around my bedroom. Same as always. She’s shy and doesn’t want to make an appearance, but she has no trouble pulling me from my extremely comfy situation because she has “an idea.”

“What if it’s a bad one?” I ask.

“It’s not. I promise.”

Ha! I’ve heard that before. I wouldn’t trust her as far as I can throw her, and since I’ve never been able to get my hands on her to throttle her for said sleep deprivation, we’ll never know how far that is.

I snuggle a little further under the covers. If I ignore her, she’s bound to go away.

“Li-iz. Li-iz. You have to get up.”

Or not.

“What?” I steam, throwing covers to the floor and kicking my mattress. “What could possibly be so important at midnight?”

“It’s a good idea. I swear.”

I squint, shake my head, and finally shrug. There’s no going back to sleep now. Turning on my laptop, I cover my legs with my quilt again, trying to return some semblance of the coziness I’d been enjoying before such a rude interruption.

Computer humming, work in progress open, I wait. “So … what was the great idea?”

Silence.

“Come on. I’m tired, and I have to work in the morning. What’s this master plan you were swearing by a few minutes ago?”

“Ummm … I forgot.”

I’m going to shoot her. I swear. “Really? You got me out of bed for ‘um. I forgot’?” I glare in her general, albeit, invisible direction. “I’m going back to bed. Don’t even think about waking me up again.”

My finger is an inch away from the computer’s off button when she explodes, “Wait! Wait! I remember! It’s about him.”

“Who him?

“Hi-im.”

She lives with me, and she can’t even remember my hero’s name? Useless, pathetic, annoying, pain in the butt. What’d I tell you?

“What about Levi?”

She gets a little cocky tone in her voice. “He needs a better conflict.” Well, that’s not news to anyone, and I think she can tell that from the way I move to shut off my computer again. “No, no! But I know what the conflict should be.”

“Oh, really. Do tell.” My skepticism is so heavy I think it might drip onto my keyboard.

“There has to be a reason he can’t go back to his job, back to San Diego.”

“Yes, I know that. Get to the point.”

Her pause, pregnant with anticipation, is nearly my undoing. “What if he’s been accused of misconduct by one of the girls?”

“Don’t be stu—Wait. What? Accused by one of the girls?”

“And his boss forced him to take a leave of absence. And-and that’s why he can’t go back just yet. But he wants to.”

I nod slowly. “But he wants to.”

“See. Right there. You can add it right there.” She points over my shoulder, and I just keep nodding, my fingers slowly gaining speed, as the words roll onto the page.

We sit like that for at least an hour. She whispers in my ear. I reject her idea on principle, then begrudgingly admit that it might work. She points out a bad sentence, but I ignore it for at least three minutes, until she’s forgotten and moved on. Then I go back to fix it.

And this night, as a yawn cracks my jaw, I know I can’t keep my eyes open any longer.

She sashays toward the door. Just before slipping out of the room, she brags, “I told you it was a good idea.”

Maybe. But I’ll never admit it to her.

*names have been withheld to protect the innocent and annoying.

Liz Johnson lives this mostly true experience far too often, but she’s slowly learning not to mind the interruptions. By day she’s a book publicist. By night she is her muse’s plaything. She lives in Colorado Springs, CO, where she enjoys theater, ice skating, and doting on her nephew and nieces in Arizona. She is the author of The Kidnapping of Kenzie Thorn, and her second novel, Vanishing Act, will release in 2010.

Stay tuned tomorrow as I post a review of The Kidnapping of Kenzie Thorn.