The Tragic Muses of Bête Noire

Hey kids,

I know I haven’t been very prolific on LIAC lately, and there are various reasons for this - most of which are top-secret and are to do with 7.2gig of pornography. However, one that isn’t secret anymore is that I’ve been given the totally random honour of being a judge in the first annual writing contest being hosted on JournalSpace. I’m pretty sure they made me a judge in case I just blew everybody out of the water with one of my creative non-fiction rants. But don't worry, there are well over a hundred entrants already so the competition is stiff. Anyway, if you can write worth a damn, then please do enter by clicking here. Seriously, enter. Because the more fucking idiots there are trying to write and win awards, the more fucking idiots might try and get published, thus muddying the waters for the publishing industry and making it more likely for real, struggling writers to get published.

Anyway, this judging thing isn’t all roses. I had to write a short bio, detailing why I write and what I think makes good writing. Obviously, in the throes of my fucked-up dysfunction I wrote it in terms of demons, torture, a girl that I loved and set it all in Hell. That’s how I like to do things. So here it is, just because it’s blatant LIAC and I feel a bit guilty over not writing here for a while.

I know you miss me, really. Cunts.

The Tragic Muses of Bête Noire

Yeah, I’ve worked in the Muse Repository for centuries now. Time’s flown, which is kinda strange around here, because the Underworld usually makes time go slow. You know, so you can really feel the pain. I know, with these spikes in my temples, sometimes a minute can seem like an hour – especially when I bump one – but usually I’m here at my desk assigning Muses to the artists of Hell. It’s all very interesting…

Take this one guy we had in the other year. Said he was a writer, but had no ideas. Ha! What sort of a writer has no ideas? A very bad one, yeah. He had some notion of getting published in The Devil’s Quill or Creative Hades – I don’t know, one of those glossy tabloid showcases. I mean, he gave us some example stuff, and it was good – but there was no fire in it. No teeth. Very bland.

He was willing to pay both his kidneys and a lung for a Muse. I don’t mean metaphorically, either. He’d started cutting into his abdomen before I could even explain the process to him proper. See, you can come in here looking for inspiration, but you don’t actually get any until we think you deserve it. Muses are rare things to come by, we don’t just dish them out to anybody willing to sell a vital organ or three.

So I explained, that he had to have the interview first. We have a demon here – goes by the name Bête Noire – who chats to each candidate before they can have a Muse. Well, I say chat; it’s more like a prolonged torture session. He talks to them about what makes good writing. He demonstrates it by putting spells on the candidates. See – Bête Noire says that good writing is like magic. It should possess the mind of the reader. Let them relate, pull them into a world that isn’t theirs, make them feel or remember things they weren’t expecting. To draw any reaction – laughter, sadness, anger, heartache – independently of folks’ actual situations, is what he says makes good writing. You have to stir emotion. No emotion, no good. And Mr. Noire knows what he’s talking about – fallen angel, see? Used to be editor-in-chief of Hark! Magazine, up in Heaven. Poor bugger got shopped for torturing stories out of angels. Still, he’s sort of doing that every day now. He’s happier here in Hell.

Anyway, so this guy comes out of the interview room, and he’s not looking too great. Head all smashed in, and something looking like a family of worms living in there. Weird spells, Mr. Noire uses. I get told that this candidate has potential, but requires a Muse. So I get the contract all laid out for him – we take all profit from his writing for the first ten centuries and after that he can do what he likes. Ha, sounds like a bad deal, but really the guy is getting the best Muse this side of Purgatory.

He signs, I sign, Mr. Noire signs – all in the candidate’s blood, course. He seems happy enough, and so I send him into the Muse Fitting room. He stays in there for seventeen years.

Sounds like a long time, right? What goes on in there? Well, he meets his Muse. Different for each candidate, but for this guy it’s a girl he falls deeply in love with. Very deeply. You know, that type of love that feels like a thousand shards of brilliance, each perfect and unique to you both? Yeah. She falls for him too, of course. In fact it’d seem like Heaven in that room for a good decade or so. Sometimes you can hear them laughing, talking. Poor sods.

After about twelve years, I dunno, something like that, the girl breaks his heart. Not sure how she does it, but it’s something awful. We don’t let them out right away – he stays in there with her for a few more years. Maybe he tries to fix himself, maybe she even tries to help. Can’t be done, of course. This is all pre-ordained. It’s all part of his Muse. And when he comes out of that room, he’s already writing. He’s writing every minute of the day. Like a universe of ideas have suddenly come upon him. It’s great to see, a job well done.

Sure, you can try talking to him, but he’s not much for talking about it. He doesn’t understand what happened to him in that room. He’s trying to explain it, to himself and to anybody that’ll read. I read a bit of it once, and it’s like he puts himself into these complex analogies and twisted metaphors. As though abstracting his situation might let him explain stuff that’s inexplicable. You know, like love and stuff. I kinda liked it.

And far as I know, he’s never eaten, never slept, never stopped writing. How’s that for a Muse? So many ideas you’ll only rest when you finish writing them all out. Can’t say if he’ll ever stop, though. Looks like we pulled a real doozy on him.

Anyway, he’s pretty widely read now. Hope he’s happy with it.