A muse will never sit on your chair, your desk, your shoulders, nor your lap. So I realized. Do not mistake recycling your beloved bits for progress. Kill them all. Kill your darlings the way you have to kill all the tabs on your computer. And please drop the metafiction for now. Just do it, but keep it separate from the novel. Last night, I watched Betty Blue. Betty is obsessed with publishing her boyfriend’s book. She becomes his muse, and that drives her mad. And when the muse has fulfilled its role, a white pillow covers her face.
And now that I think of J, I see him through the smoke, Chet Baker playing at four a.m. A portrait of Andy Warhol above the piano, mismatched pillows, a cold room. Wanting to stay and to leave at the same time. Something is about to happen. I knew I had to leave, and that it would be the last time I see J.