I need to be honest, Writing Muse. When we’re on the same wavelength, I love you to pieces. I open my laptop, and like magic, you know my exact needs and can read my mind. How glorious when we’re united! I’m focused, my thoughts are clear, and my fingers dance atop the keyboard like Fred Astaire. Look at them go! And look at the letters filling the screen at a steady clip! Row by row, paragraph by paragraph, the words ravenously consume the blank screen. Between my effort and your cooperation, we soon stitch together a smattering of coherent ideas. No, they are not perfect, and yes, there’s a long way to go, but they hold promise: nuggets of insight, smooth turns of phrase, amusing irony. We’re cooking! I think, lulled with confidence as we chug along at a good pace, cheering each other on, basking in the flow of creation. Time passes without my noticing—the best feeling ever! Oh, Writing Muse, how I wish I knew the formula to keep us in sync forever.

But.

All great love affairs are flawed.

And boy, can you get under my skin with your moodiness and inconsistency. I hate that I can’t rely on you. Without warning, you sometimes refuse to participate. I power up my laptop, open the same document we’d successfully worked on a mere day ago, and you’ve gone missing. Some partner. I reread our first draft, and for the life of me, I can’t figure out what to write next. We had a plan, but it doesn’t make sense anymore. My thoughts are as murky as mud, and my fingers feel paralyzed. I stare out the window and back at the page. I reread the draft again. I throw in a few new sentences, but they are dumb, dead-end sentences that do nothing to move the piece forward. Delete. My fingers punch out several phrases—strings of words here, strings of words there—in hopes that nascent ideas might lead me to the on-ramp. The on-ramp that you clearly don’t care if I find. Which is so irritating and frankly rude. Would it kill you to lend a hand, open an eye, feign collaboration? Alas, if there’s one thing I’ve learned about you, it’s that you cannot be pushed. Damn your stubborn and selfish sides, which by the way, are serious character flaws you ought to work harder to address. Until your aloof mood passes, I know I’m on my own.

And working on my own is laborious and not nearly as fun. I seem to fight for each and every sentence, and I struggle to keep my eyes from wandering back to the window. The view outside brings endless distractions: birds flittering to and fro, a neighbor walking her dog, the mail delivery truck driving by. Time drags as letters haltingly appear on the screen. Who wrote this drivel?! I want to scream when I finally reread the updated draft. Honestly, the combination of words and punctuation I’ve thrown together is an affront to literacy, and I imagine any sentient being forced to read my work would not be able to keep his lunch down. Where are you? Help me!

Eventually, you return. A new day, a new opening of my laptop, and you’re back, ready for action. Have you thought about moving this paragraph up, you whisper? I have an idea for a metaphor, you tell me. And my fingers are off to the races, tapping the keys with purpose and a plan, trying to keep up with the ideas you keep feeding me. We’re reunited, and it feels so good. I have fun while I puzzle through tricky parts, peruse the thesaurus for just the right term, and tighten each and every section until I’ve eliminated pesky unnecessary words. Somehow, we’ve found our way back to each other, and somehow, I once again forgive and forget your penchant for abandonment.

So Writing Muse, how often will we go through this? Why can’t we make our good runs last longer? Can’t you stay committed and dedicated? Don’t you love our union as much as I do? Maybe I’ll draft a motivational piece that can persuade you to stick around the next time you’re tempted to disappear. One thing, though: can you help me write it?