My imaginary writing muse is easily bored. I believe she has a T-type personality. You know, the kind of thrill addict who feeds on adrenaline and sweat. She prefers to hover behind me near deadlines, encouraging me to finish while mocking me for waiting so long to start the task.

We first met in high school when I arrived in class unaware that a creative writing assignment was due. The teacher reminded us that we had until the end of the period to turn in an essay or a poem. A sound suspiciously like my best friend’s voice whispered, “Write what matters.”

.As a new Christian, I wrote a poem from my heart titled “Amen.”

Lord, the beautiful gifts you give
No force on earth
Can rust, or burn, or chip, or dent,
Or dampen, or crush, or kill,
Or dissolve, or imitate, or cheapen,
Or mass produce in plastic.
That is quality.

The teacher secretly submitted it to the Creative Arts Award by Youth Magazine, which published it and paid me $50. Months later, I received a contract in the mail to publish the poem in an anthology, earning me another $50. Getting paid $100 for an hour’s work beat the stuffing out of my pay as a lifeguard at the YMCA.

The muse followed me to college, where I wrote for the daily student newspaper as part of the work-study program to fund my out-of-state tuition. In time, her voice became familiar, whether nagging, nudging, or nixing story ideas.

We parted ways in the daytime when I worked as a Technical Writer for a Fortune 500 bank. Writing policies and procedures took more grunt work than creativity. Logic, fact-checking, and attending long meetings where committees reviewed every sentence step-by-step threatened my sanity and didn’t interest the muse in the least.

At night, while my husband studied for graduate courses, the muse stopped by during the scribbling of a play and two mediocre novels. These works died quietly, followed by a private burial in the backyard of a rented house. The muse appeared to pat my back and say, “There. There. It’s just as well.”

In the years that followed, when I wrote for magazines and newspapers, my muse dropped in to remind me to avoid showing off my vocabulary. Readers did not appreciate my love of obscure words. When I set a deadline to finish my first novel in a year, she laughed and laughed. Like my best friend, she’s as likely to tsk tsk tepid, predictable writing as she is to cheer deft prose and snappy dialogue. She knows my struggles through each first draft. She snickers at typos and glares at plot holes.

The muse elbowed me into writing a column for a year because I needed to find my voice. Changing from non-fiction writing to fiction writing demanded it. In journalism school, editors beat my point of view out of me.

“If I want your opinion,” they’d say, “we’ll ask for it. Until then, stick to the facts, be objective, and get yourself out of the way of the story.”

The objective, distant observer as narrator was the voice I used in those first attempts at a novel. And that reporter’s voice didn’t work. At. All.

Writing a fun first-person column brought out my humor and freed me to explore writing about what mattered. I wrote about my daughter’s brain injury and recovery. I wrote a Consumer Reports-style piece comparing the vehicle I needed (an SUV) to the one desired (the space shuttle). The guys at the Jet Propulsion Lab pinned my article on the bulletin board because, mile for mile, the shuttle was cheaper to operate. I wrote about how to use peer pressure to my advantage by naming rules of the house after the guest whose behavior warranted a house rule. For example, the Emily Rule is not driving the See-Doo on the lawn. Two of these articles were nominated for a national humor award.

Over decades of friendship with my muse, we’ve developed a strong bond. We can be apart for weeks while I labor through research and plotting, and then she returns, smelling of coffee, for the long days of writing. She tirelessly shows up at whatever hour of day or night I’m writing with purpose and passion. The snarky brat is the first to say “I told you so” when a critique partner calls out predictable dialogue or vague descriptions.

My muse and I have settled on a verbal contract. She agrees to do whatever it takes to help, as long as I do whatever it takes to write what matters in my authentic voice.