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My muse and I had an agreement last night. I would stay up and type until she got to a point in the book that she wasn’t sure about. What I didn’t understand when I made that agreement with her was that she pretty much knew the entire end of the book. She still does, but about 5 AM this morning the physical half of this pair, me, had to throw a flag on the play. Flag on the play for exhausting the writer in a happy can-I-keep-typing-fast-enough-for-my-Muse-way.

Yes, I needed to finish the book because the deadline is upon us, but just because you need to hit your deadline doesn’t mean your muse and you, the writer, will become one and do some impossible inspired rush and make the date. But we did, she and I. I love my muse and most of the time she loves me back. We still see the writing as play sometimes I lose sight of that with all the demands on my time. I remind myself it means I’m successful and doing well and it does, but sometimes I forget and treat what I do as just a job, but last night sort of brought home that its more than that, that’s always been more than that for me. I love what I do. I love Merry and her world and the fact that with this new book I’m getting to play with characters I haven’t seen since book one, A KISS OF SHADOWS. I love that the demi-fey are more on stage because those were the first fairies that interested me as a child. I had elaborate imaginary stories in my head starting in fifth grade about this family of demi-fey that lived in an Oak tree outside the math class window, or maybe it was just math class where I did most of my daydreaming.

You would think that an all-nighter like last night would have made me wake up disgruntled and bitter, but no it helped put things in perspective for me. It helped remind me that even on nights when on any other job I’ve ever had, or class I’ve ever studied, an all-nighter was just about endurance and felt like punishment but not last night, not when I’m writing my book as fast as I can while the Muse tries to keep my tired brain functioning while she and I have our zen moment and pour out a shit load of pages.

Then just as I was finishing up this morning at 5 AM and we were all trying to get to bed before dawn found us still up, an owl hooted outside the office. A Great Horned Owl sounded its typical hoot that only it makes but everyone thinks most owls sound like, that deep rich, "Whooo-hoo. Whooo-hoo." But the call came from the side of my office with no trees near it. There was only the water garden and no perching spots, and then I realized it was on the roof of my office. So at 5 A-freaking-M in the morning a Great Horned Owl was perching on my office and calling into the thick, wrapping darkness. It was the perfect end to the writing session. A blessing and a reward because if we hadn’t been up working we so would not have heard the owl call last night. Though I, and Carri, had been seeing something about the size of a red-tail hawk gliding from tree to tree in the yard for last two days. I kept seeing this dark shape just out of the corner of my eye as I worked a my desk, was beginning to think I was hallucinating it, but last night we figured out who our mystery guest was. I don’t know if the owl is still hanging about but if he is I wish him well and reverently hope I am asleep long before he calls in the dark velvet heart of the night.

The climatic end scene is left to finish. I could only outline it in detail last night because I was too tired to think more upon it and besides we’d finally gotten past the point where my muse was certain of her way. Sometimes I leave bread crumbs for her in the forest and she follows me, but more often I’m the one following her inspiring trail of cake crumbs through the forest where the shadows lie deep and thick under the trees no matter the hour of the day. Last night I followed those crumbs until they vanished and left me standing in the thick gloom of the forest’s heart without a trail sign to follow, so I pitched my tent for the night and waited for morning and hoped there would be more crumbs to follow. And this morning when I woke there were. They trail off into the shadows of the thick, high fir trees, chocolate crumbs today because the muse knows I’m tired. She knows, always what will tempt me to go just that little bit further into the shadows, or when to push me out into some sunny clearing to be dazzled by the unexpected light.