Man, what a whacked out day, already. And it’s only 9:17am.

I’ve been up since 3am. My body was exhausted but my mind was just up and racing and didn’t want to turn off. I stayed in bed until 5:45am , hoping I would fall back to sleep but it never happened.

One nice thing that did happen while I was laying there is that Doris jumped up on the bed and visited me — that was the first time she’s done that since Daddycakes died. So that was really sweet and I’m glad I was awake for that. But mostly I was just laying there thinking about life. Not in a bad way, just in that way that was teetering on “bad.” And I really wanted to just be done with it and go back to sleep.

Instead, I got up and fed the cats, and now it’s all these hours later, and I’ve had 3 cups of coffee so I’m wired and thoroughly exhausted at the same time. And I’ve been sitting here in front of Chapter 20 of Blessed By Light for over 2 hours already, waiting for the Muse to appear but — nada.

Nothing’s coming. I’ve even tried begging: Just one WORD. Just the first word of the second paragraph of Chapter 20. Anything to give me a thread to follow.

But, literally, nothing is there.  Just an empty void.

I have 2 muses. One is human and alive and living in the world  – you know who he is because I’m always blogging about him.  And I was hoping that perhaps one of his Red Hand Files newsletters would go out this morning, because I always get inspired by those, but – zippo there, too.

The other muse is the Muse. Capital “M.” The one from that great beyond place who is dictating Blessed By Light.

Neither muse is around today. It’s like the whole world is empty. Like some huge meeting was called that the whole world is attending right now and I was the only one who didn’t get the memo. So here I sit, waiting. While everyone else on Earth – physical and nonphysical – is off eating free doughnuts and finding out something really, really important that I remain oblivious to.

Usually I don’t mind waiting on the Muse. He’s already delivered 19 chapters plus one paragraph for Chapter 20, so I know he’s not going to simply abandon the book. But I’m on my 3rd day of getting nothing, not a single word, and I get antsy.

I really hate getting antsy. That’s when my mind starts dipping into really unproductive places and then I have to focus my energy into not thinking stuff like that.

Nothing is more frustrating than having to force your mind to stop thinking about something.  Because that “something” just becomes a larger and larger magnet for your unproductive thoughts.

I think it’s best to just walk away, and go spend some time in the huge storage closet in my guest room. Because in there is a suitcase full of all the songs I wrote over a 25-year period. And a file case of all the many papers I wrote when I was in Divinity School; papers that garnered me a Magna Cum Laude GPA but a rather unceremonious adieu when it was uncovered that I believed in a radical Jesus Christ instead of the one I was supposed to believe in. And there are 3 bookcases in that closet, filled with 40 years of my journals and all the books I’ve written or edited or contributed to, including the various languages they were translated into…

You know, a way to force myself to relax and realize that today is not the day that I will suddenly stop writing FOREVER.

The Muse, or muses, will return. They always do. I must remind myself of this today. Okay. Thanks for visiting. See ya, gang. I love you.