My muse likes to be wooed.
One of my favorite methods of courtship involves giving her a bouquet of words. I quickly glance at a bunch of words — in a novel, a newspaper, a map, a cookbook, hell, even a cereal box — and I grant her permission to autofill the rest. I then use what she gives me as fodder for stories and poems.
For example, one night I was scanning the items in my Dataminr folder (which lists some of the latest tweets about possible breaking news events) when a subject heading caught my eye. It said:
Update Icelandair #FI688 passengers are now disemb…
and my muse immediately changed that to:
Update Icelandair #FI688 passengers are now disemboweling each other.
Yep, what was a simple tweet about a mechanical failure on a plane (cockpit window broke, no depressurization, passengers removed safely from the aircraft) was transformed into a zombie nightmare of apocalyptic proportions.
Ever appreciative of her “gifts,” I gratefully added that prompt to my “future stories” folder. And the next time I’m in the mood to write a truly scary tale, it’ll be there.
