The Muse and Me - Short Story

Starr Polish · 05-21-2004, 02:52 PM

I've been in a writing slump for awhile, and decided to just write a dialogue with a muse that would help me explain why I write, exactly. It morphed into a story, as these things often due, that I just wrote in one sitting. It's the first thing I've written for something outside of an English class in a long time. I would love to hear some criticism. I apologize in advance for its length, and please realize this is the rough draft. It needs a little work.

It's also a bit different from what I usually write, and is extremely dialogue heavy.

Starr Polish · 05-21-2004, 02:54 PM

It started out innocently enough. I had seen a small ad in the paper one day that caught my interest like a cat catches a mouse. At first it played with me, because I couldn't believe it was real. Then, it hit me hard, and I found myself outside a dingy brown building in the middle of downtown, with the newspaper ad clutched in my hand.

Think you're a writer?
Muse for hire
Please inquire at 734 James St.
Office 28
No appoinment needed
Bring sample work

It was ridiculous, I knew. A muse? And why had this advertisment grabbed me so quickly? It was small, undescript, and utterly unbelievable. It was probably a scam. But still, my curious nature wouldn't let it go, and I walked into the building. The inside was very much like the outside: a nondescript yet depressing brown. The walls, ceiling and floor were all brown. A large black desk with a small, balding man sitting behind it lay to my right.

"Um...excuse me?" The balding man looked up from his computer and stared. "Could you tell me where Office 28 is?"

"Yeah, it's down that hallway and to the left," he grunted quickly, waving his hands to a hallway entrance. I mumbled a half-hearted "thanks" and headed toward the office. The letters were a dingy bronze against an univiting grey metal door. I began to feel uneasy. What had I gotten myself into? It was probably some scam to plagiarize a fool's writing. Or maybe it was something worse. I shook my head and tried to pull myself together as I knocked on the door.

"You don't need to knock! Come in!" came a shout from the other side of the door. The voice was surprisingly smooth, but extremely androgynous. I opened to door warily and found myself in a dimly lit room. Yellowed linoleum covered the floor, and a large wooden desk separated the only other two pieces of furniture in the office: a small wooden chair and a dark chair looming near the window. "Did you bring some stuff for me to look over?" I nodded, having trouble getting a good look at the owner of the voice in the dark room. I set the papers down on the large wooden desk and then returned to the wooden chair. It was uncomfortable, but then again, not one aspect of the room was exactly welcoming.

"So you want to be a writer?" A small figure leaned back in the large leather chair. Nervously, I cleared my throat.

"Ah, yes, yes I do. Actually, I think -" The sudden sound of a fist slamming the desk stopped my words in my throat. I thought I was going to choke.

"No, no, all I wanted was a yes or no." Dark eyes that felt as if they could see to my soul glared at me.

"Oh."

"Please only speak when spoken to." I remained silent. "Good. Now, why do you want to be a writer?"

"Actually, I already am one." Though I had always believed it, I suddenly felt like I was lying.

"Mhmm...that's what all the new ones say." She (at least, I think it was a she) said, craning her (or his) neck to read the small amount of work I had brought. "Please answer the question."

"Well, I enjoy words, and I hope to tame them and help them express what's inside of me." As soon as I said the words I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Why did I come in here?

"Oh, come now, you can do better than that," the muse said, almost maternally. I was nearly sure it was at least in female form by this time.

"I can?" I barely squeaked out the words, for my throat had suddenly gone dry. It was like the air had turned to dust. I was suffocating.

"I'm asking the questions here. Try again."

"I-I would like to consider myself a tamer of words. Letters and words are wild until I catch them and force them to do my will." What was coming out of my mouth?

"Now that just makes you sound scary. And lame." An exasperated sigh followed. Did a muse just say lame? "All right, I suppose we have to move on. Any questions?"

"Well, no, I suppose." I couldn't ask her anything. I could hardly answer her own questions.

Starr Polish · 05-21-2004, 02:55 PM

"For someone who wants to be a writer, you aren't very expressive." Well, she wasn't giving me a chance.

"Hey, now wait a min--"

"Tut! What did I say?" I again replied with silence. The muse's voice was liquid and perpetually changing, so it was hard for me to guess her mood. Still, I felt I didn't want to make her angry or irritated. She continued. "Good. So, what hours are you willing to work?"

"Excuse me?" Hours? This wasn't supposed to be a job. I just wanted to write.

"I said, what hours are you willing to work." The dark eyes rolled a bit, and lithe hands shuffled the papers I had set on her desk. I was running through my mind, searchign for any kind of answer.

"I know, I just...I...um. I'm not sure." Not exactly what I had hoped would come out of my mouth.

"Well, I can see this started off bad and is just getting worse," she said, a hint of mockery seeping through her fluid voice.

"Oh." Her eyes flickered upwards to look at me after my utterance, and then returned to scan my attempt at fiction in her hands.

"Are you willing to work whenever called upon, even at three in the morning?"

"I...that early?" Once again, I found myself astonished at what she was saying. Absolutely not possible. I'm not going to make a commitment that causes loss of sleep just for a simple hobby.

"The hours are flexible, of course." Ah, she must have caught the uncertainty in my voice. "When I decide they should be." Okay, maybe not. At least she had some sense of humor.

"Well, I..."

"Are you willing to endure days, weeks, and maybe even months of nothingness, staring at a blank page and willing the words to come but getting nothing?" She interrupted, apparently getting tired of my stuttering and lack of certainty.

"I didn't know that was part of the job description," I said irritably. This was getting out of control.

"I thought you wanted to be a writer." The muse was no longer reading my paper or fiddling with things on her desk. She looked straight at me as she spoke.

"I do!" I shouted, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. "I do," I repeated, in a calmer fashion. "But writing is supposed to be fun."

"Fun!" She spat the word out as if it were bitter. "You expected this to just be fun? Well let me tell you, it can be fun, but it's a lot of work before it gets entertaining. That's what's wrong with the young writers these days."

"Oh...maybe I don't -" I was beginning to feel uncertain. All of the things I had told myself, about being a writer and enjoying the expressiveness of the art, seemed to be the biggest lies in existance. Yet, in a fashion I had somehow gotten used to in a short amount of time, the muse interrupted. Again.

"Oh, hush. Writing is work. It's long nights of blank pages and a raging brain that wants to get the words out. It's tears and emotions and ripping apart words and images until you get it just right. Then, you show it to someone else and let them rip it apart as well, and you try to glue the pieces back together. At the end, you should have something worth admiring, if not for its quality then for the love and time you put into it." Her voice had softened as she spoke of the work one put into writing, and she stood from her chair. She was even shorter than I had imagined, though I think my earlier fear and apprehension had made her appear much larger. Her eyes were bright and darted from place to place. I believe she forgot I was there until I spoke.

"I want that," I whispered. Her eyes quickly focused on me again, and she promptly sat down in her large leather chair.

"But you can't get it without work. So are you willing or not?" I stared at her, mouth open.

"But...I'm not a writer. Not after all the things you said."

"I never said you weren't one. You're going to have to prove it to me. Know how?" I shook my head and stood up quickly.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry for wasting your time." I stood up from my chair quickly and winced at the grating noise it made against the old linoleum. I couldn't get out of that small, stuffy office soon enough. I couldn't hold back the tears as I walked out into the only slightly fresher air of the city streets. What had I done? In just a short period of time I had shattered all of my dreams of writing. Writing was my passion, and now I didn't even have that. What was the point anymore?

I sat down on an old green bench, its paint chipping to expose the gray metal underneath. That's how I felt, like I was chipped away and exposed for the fake I was. I needed time to figure everything out, and decide where my future was going. It was strange, writing was just supposed to be a hobby, but now that I had discovered I wasn't really a writer, my life felt like it was worthless. I finally concluded that I needed the evidence of my lies and begin to focus on mundane things such as how much money I made and what was on T.V. that night. It was at this moment that I realized I had left my manuscripts in the muse's office. As much as I hated returning, I knew that I must, and reluctantly entered the brown building again.

"Back so soon?" she asked as I entered the office, not bothering to knock or wait for an invitation to enter this time.

"I need my manuscrip back," I said, noticing it was in her hands.

"Ah, I see. You did leave in such a huff. I didn't get a chance to finish reading them. It's pretty good stuff. A little young, and it definitely lacks refinement or sophistication, but I've read worse. You have at least some semblance of grammar." She smiled slightly. "Why do you need it? Don't you have other copies?" Her eyes peered, almost accusingly, over the top of the paper she was reviewing.

"Actually, I don't want copies anymore. I'm not a writer, so I shouldn't pretend to be," I said. My voice was not as steady as I had expected, and a great pit began to grow in my stomach. I still felt like I was lying. I sat down in the wooden chair, for suddenly I felt very tired. "So why does this hurt so much?" I though outloud. The muse smiled again, and set the paper down.

"Because you are a writer. Let me tell you what makes someone a writer. It isn't being the best at expressing something, or having an impressive cache of three point vocabulary words. It's writing because you have to write, because it makes you feel whole. You didn't come back here to get your papers to destroy them. You came back here to tell me you are a writer, because you need writing to make you feel real." I nodded slowly as she crossed the room and put her arm around me. "You are a writer. I'll call on you sometime soon, and I expect you to answer." I nodded once again and left, feeling slightly shocked, but no longer empty. I found my way home and set up a new notebook and a pen, so I could be ready for the muse's first call.

***Earniel*** · 05-27-2004, 04:36 AM

Interesting idea to let a muse have an office, customers and putting add in papers. It slightly reminded me of that movie 'Dogma'.

I like the dialogue.

Starr Polish · 05-28-2004, 10:33 AM

It's weird, actually. I started with just the dialogue, since I was having awful writer's block and wondering why I considered myself a writer, and it just kind of popped into my head to make the speaker a muse in a crummy office. Heh. I'm sure Dogma had a little influence on it, with the whole "making a muse a tangible person-thing." I think the ending falls flat, though.

***Earniel*** · 06-02-2004, 08:13 AM

I hope that last line refers to the movie and not your short story.

Beruthiel's cat · 06-02-2004, 09:41 AM

I think your story has a very clever premise, Starr. You do a nice job with the dialogue, which is hard for many writers. I love writing dialogue. I enjoy the rhythm and cadence of individual speech patterns. Everyone's voice is different and a writer should try to make the dialogue reflect the differences in character with a minimum of "she said" or "he said." You do that pretty effectively.

I don't think the ending is so bad. I'm not sure where you can take it, but if you have another idea about where you'd like it to go, try to write it up and post the "alternate" ending. I'd like to see any revisions you come up with.

***Tessar*** · 06-02-2004, 01:09 PM

I don't think the ending is flat at all!

Great story Starr! I loved it, and it actually kept me reading from start to finish with no effort at all

. Truly entertaining!

05-21-2004, 02:52 PM	#1
Starr Polish Elf Lord Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Slow down and I sail on the river, slow down and I walk to the hill Posts: 2,389	The Muse and Me - Short Story I've been in a writing slump for awhile, and decided to just write a dialogue with a muse that would help me explain why I write, exactly. It morphed into a story, as these things often due, that I just wrote in one sitting. It's the first thing I've written for something outside of an English class in a long time. I would love to hear some criticism. I apologize in advance for its length, and please realize this is the rough draft. It needs a little work. It's also a bit different from what I usually write, and is extremely dialogue heavy. __________________ “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” –Bertrand Russell

05-21-2004, 02:54 PM	#2
Starr Polish Elf Lord Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Slow down and I sail on the river, slow down and I walk to the hill Posts: 2,389	It started out innocently enough. I had seen a small ad in the paper one day that caught my interest like a cat catches a mouse. At first it played with me, because I couldn't believe it was real. Then, it hit me hard, and I found myself outside a dingy brown building in the middle of downtown, with the newspaper ad clutched in my hand. Think you're a writer? Muse for hire Please inquire at 734 James St. Office 28 No appoinment needed Bring sample work It was ridiculous, I knew. A muse? And why had this advertisment grabbed me so quickly? It was small, undescript, and utterly unbelievable. It was probably a scam. But still, my curious nature wouldn't let it go, and I walked into the building. The inside was very much like the outside: a nondescript yet depressing brown. The walls, ceiling and floor were all brown. A large black desk with a small, balding man sitting behind it lay to my right. "Um...excuse me?" The balding man looked up from his computer and stared. "Could you tell me where Office 28 is?" "Yeah, it's down that hallway and to the left," he grunted quickly, waving his hands to a hallway entrance. I mumbled a half-hearted "thanks" and headed toward the office. The letters were a dingy bronze against an univiting grey metal door. I began to feel uneasy. What had I gotten myself into? It was probably some scam to plagiarize a fool's writing. Or maybe it was something worse. I shook my head and tried to pull myself together as I knocked on the door. "You don't need to knock! Come in!" came a shout from the other side of the door. The voice was surprisingly smooth, but extremely androgynous. I opened to door warily and found myself in a dimly lit room. Yellowed linoleum covered the floor, and a large wooden desk separated the only other two pieces of furniture in the office: a small wooden chair and a dark chair looming near the window. "Did you bring some stuff for me to look over?" I nodded, having trouble getting a good look at the owner of the voice in the dark room. I set the papers down on the large wooden desk and then returned to the wooden chair. It was uncomfortable, but then again, not one aspect of the room was exactly welcoming. "So you want to be a writer?" A small figure leaned back in the large leather chair. Nervously, I cleared my throat. "Ah, yes, yes I do. Actually, I think -" The sudden sound of a fist slamming the desk stopped my words in my throat. I thought I was going to choke. "No, no, all I wanted was a yes or no." Dark eyes that felt as if they could see to my soul glared at me. "Oh." "Please only speak when spoken to." I remained silent. "Good. Now, why do you want to be a writer?" "Actually, I already am one." Though I had always believed it, I suddenly felt like I was lying. "Mhmm...that's what all the new ones say." She (at least, I think it was a she) said, craning her (or his) neck to read the small amount of work I had brought. "Please answer the question." "Well, I enjoy words, and I hope to tame them and help them express what's inside of me." As soon as I said the words I wanted to crawl into a hole and die. Why did I come in here? "Oh, come now, you can do better than that," the muse said, almost maternally. I was nearly sure it was at least in female form by this time. "I can?" I barely squeaked out the words, for my throat had suddenly gone dry. It was like the air had turned to dust. I was suffocating. "I'm asking the questions here. Try again." "I-I would like to consider myself a tamer of words. Letters and words are wild until I catch them and force them to do my will." What was coming out of my mouth? "Now that just makes you sound scary. And lame." An exasperated sigh followed. Did a muse just say lame? "All right, I suppose we have to move on. Any questions?" "Well, no, I suppose." I couldn't ask her anything. I could hardly answer her own questions. __________________ “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” –Bertrand Russell

05-21-2004, 02:55 PM	#3
Starr Polish Elf Lord Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Slow down and I sail on the river, slow down and I walk to the hill Posts: 2,389	"For someone who wants to be a writer, you aren't very expressive." Well, she wasn't giving me a chance. "Hey, now wait a min--" "Tut! What did I say?" I again replied with silence. The muse's voice was liquid and perpetually changing, so it was hard for me to guess her mood. Still, I felt I didn't want to make her angry or irritated. She continued. "Good. So, what hours are you willing to work?" "Excuse me?" Hours? This wasn't supposed to be a job. I just wanted to write. "I said, what hours are you willing to work." The dark eyes rolled a bit, and lithe hands shuffled the papers I had set on her desk. I was running through my mind, searchign for any kind of answer. "I know, I just...I...um. I'm not sure." Not exactly what I had hoped would come out of my mouth. "Well, I can see this started off bad and is just getting worse," she said, a hint of mockery seeping through her fluid voice. "Oh." Her eyes flickered upwards to look at me after my utterance, and then returned to scan my attempt at fiction in her hands. "Are you willing to work whenever called upon, even at three in the morning?" "I...that early?" Once again, I found myself astonished at what she was saying. Absolutely not possible. I'm not going to make a commitment that causes loss of sleep just for a simple hobby. "The hours are flexible, of course." Ah, she must have caught the uncertainty in my voice. "When I decide they should be." Okay, maybe not. At least she had some sense of humor. "Well, I..." "Are you willing to endure days, weeks, and maybe even months of nothingness, staring at a blank page and willing the words to come but getting nothing?" She interrupted, apparently getting tired of my stuttering and lack of certainty. "I didn't know that was part of the job description," I said irritably. This was getting out of control. "I thought you wanted to be a writer." The muse was no longer reading my paper or fiddling with things on her desk. She looked straight at me as she spoke. "I do!" I shouted, perhaps a bit too enthusiastically. "I do," I repeated, in a calmer fashion. "But writing is supposed to be fun." "Fun!" She spat the word out as if it were bitter. "You expected this to just be fun? Well let me tell you, it can be fun, but it's a lot of work before it gets entertaining. That's what's wrong with the young writers these days." "Oh...maybe I don't -" I was beginning to feel uncertain. All of the things I had told myself, about being a writer and enjoying the expressiveness of the art, seemed to be the biggest lies in existance. Yet, in a fashion I had somehow gotten used to in a short amount of time, the muse interrupted. Again. "Oh, hush. Writing is work. It's long nights of blank pages and a raging brain that wants to get the words out. It's tears and emotions and ripping apart words and images until you get it just right. Then, you show it to someone else and let them rip it apart as well, and you try to glue the pieces back together. At the end, you should have something worth admiring, if not for its quality then for the love and time you put into it." Her voice had softened as she spoke of the work one put into writing, and she stood from her chair. She was even shorter than I had imagined, though I think my earlier fear and apprehension had made her appear much larger. Her eyes were bright and darted from place to place. I believe she forgot I was there until I spoke. "I want that," I whispered. Her eyes quickly focused on me again, and she promptly sat down in her large leather chair. "But you can't get it without work. So are you willing or not?" I stared at her, mouth open. "But...I'm not a writer. Not after all the things you said." "I never said you weren't one. You're going to have to prove it to me. Know how?" I shook my head and stood up quickly. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry for wasting your time." I stood up from my chair quickly and winced at the grating noise it made against the old linoleum. I couldn't get out of that small, stuffy office soon enough. I couldn't hold back the tears as I walked out into the only slightly fresher air of the city streets. What had I done? In just a short period of time I had shattered all of my dreams of writing. Writing was my passion, and now I didn't even have that. What was the point anymore? I sat down on an old green bench, its paint chipping to expose the gray metal underneath. That's how I felt, like I was chipped away and exposed for the fake I was. I needed time to figure everything out, and decide where my future was going. It was strange, writing was just supposed to be a hobby, but now that I had discovered I wasn't really a writer, my life felt like it was worthless. I finally concluded that I needed the evidence of my lies and begin to focus on mundane things such as how much money I made and what was on T.V. that night. It was at this moment that I realized I had left my manuscripts in the muse's office. As much as I hated returning, I knew that I must, and reluctantly entered the brown building again. "Back so soon?" she asked as I entered the office, not bothering to knock or wait for an invitation to enter this time. "I need my manuscrip back," I said, noticing it was in her hands. "Ah, I see. You did leave in such a huff. I didn't get a chance to finish reading them. It's pretty good stuff. A little young, and it definitely lacks refinement or sophistication, but I've read worse. You have at least some semblance of grammar." She smiled slightly. "Why do you need it? Don't you have other copies?" Her eyes peered, almost accusingly, over the top of the paper she was reviewing. "Actually, I don't want copies anymore. I'm not a writer, so I shouldn't pretend to be," I said. My voice was not as steady as I had expected, and a great pit began to grow in my stomach. I still felt like I was lying. I sat down in the wooden chair, for suddenly I felt very tired. "So why does this hurt so much?" I though outloud. The muse smiled again, and set the paper down. "Because you are a writer. Let me tell you what makes someone a writer. It isn't being the best at expressing something, or having an impressive cache of three point vocabulary words. It's writing because you have to write, because it makes you feel whole. You didn't come back here to get your papers to destroy them. You came back here to tell me you are a writer, because you need writing to make you feel real." I nodded slowly as she crossed the room and put her arm around me. "You are a writer. I'll call on you sometime soon, and I expect you to answer." I nodded once again and left, feeling slightly shocked, but no longer empty. I found my way home and set up a new notebook and a pen, so I could be ready for the muse's first call. __________________ “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” –Bertrand Russell

05-27-2004, 04:36 AM	#4
*Earniel* The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: N?n in Eilph (Belgium) Posts: 14,363	Interesting idea to let a muse have an office, customers and putting add in papers. It slightly reminded me of that movie 'Dogma'. I like the dialogue. __________________ We are not things.

05-28-2004, 10:33 AM	#5
Starr Polish Elf Lord Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: Slow down and I sail on the river, slow down and I walk to the hill Posts: 2,389	It's weird, actually. I started with just the dialogue, since I was having awful writer's block and wondering why I considered myself a writer, and it just kind of popped into my head to make the speaker a muse in a crummy office. Heh. I'm sure Dogma had a little influence on it, with the whole "making a muse a tangible person-thing." I think the ending falls flat, though. __________________ “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.” –Bertrand Russell

06-02-2004, 08:13 AM	#6
*Earniel* The Chocoholic Sea Elf Administrator Join Date: Jan 2002 Location: N?n in Eilph (Belgium) Posts: 14,363	I hope that last line refers to the movie and not your short story. __________________ We are not things.

06-02-2004, 09:41 AM	#7
Beruthiel's cat mystical divinity of Unashamed Felinity Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: New York's beautiful North Coast -- we're all mad here!!! Posts: 635	I think your story has a very clever premise, Starr. You do a nice job with the dialogue, which is hard for many writers. I love writing dialogue. I enjoy the rhythm and cadence of individual speech patterns. Everyone's voice is different and a writer should try to make the dialogue reflect the differences in character with a minimum of "she said" or "he said." You do that pretty effectively. I don't think the ending is so bad. I'm not sure where you can take it, but if you have another idea about where you'd like it to go, try to write it up and post the "alternate" ending. I'd like to see any revisions you come up with. __________________ "Never try to out-stubborn a cat!" -- R. Heinlein ~~~~~~~~~ "But I don't want to be among mad people, " Alice remarked. "Oh, but you can't help that," said the Cat; "We're all mad here. I'm mad. You're mad." "How do you know I'm mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn't have come here." ~~ Lewis Carroll ~~~~~~~~~~~ Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana...

06-02-2004, 01:09 PM	#8
*Tessar* Master and Wielder of the Cardboard Harp of Gondor Join Date: Sep 2001 Location: IM IN UR POSTZ, EDITIN' UR WURDZ Posts: 6,433	I don't think the ending is flat at all! Great story Starr! I loved it, and it actually kept me reading from start to finish with no effort at all . Truly entertaining!