It won’t because it can’t. It can’t any more than you can ignore it. As long as that siren sings to you, neither you nor it can rest until you answer. You know that. You know that or you wouldn’t be reading these pages. You know that or this book’s title wouldn’t have leapt out at you and demanded your attention.

Your Muse, too, demands your attention. For you do have a story to tell. You have words to share, words that demand to be heard, words you need to hear.

It doesn’t matter if you don’t know what they are. That’s why I’m here.

It doesn’t matter that what you know or suspect of them scares you. That’s also why I am here.

It doesn’t matter that you don’t know how to begin if you haven’t begun, how to continue if you have already started or how to complete if you find yourself stuck part way through. That, too, is why I am here.

I am the author of these words. And I too hear the voice of the Muse, my Muse. It has whispered to me, shouted at me, urged me and prompted me for too long now. At this writing, I am barely begun. My Muse urges me to inspire and reassure you, to tell you that it’s not only possible, it’s safe to listen to the voice of your Muse and answer your call to write. That’s why I am here. That’s why you are here. All you need to do is take a deep breath and read on.

When did you know? When did the call first come? When did you know, as clearly as you know your own face, that you had to write? When did you know that an imperative deeper than most you have known was crying out for you to express it in words? When did you know?

How long has it been? How long has it been since you heard that voice? How long until you acted? Have you acted? Or have you fled? Whatever or whichever, the time is now to set pen to paper. You know it. You know it as surely and truly as you know that face in the mirror. It is the face that calls you to write. For you are your own Muse, if you allow that to be...if you allow yourself to listen.

You listened, you say, and here you are: pen poised over a sea of nothingness, wondering where that ocean of stories is. Wonder no longer. That ocean resides in the inkwell of your pen. It resides in the hard drive of your computer. The story and stories you have been called to write exist already.

“Wait,” I hear you say. “If they already exist, why in God’s name must I write them? If they already exist, they have already been told. I’m done.”

Would that it were that simple.

Those stories exist in another realm. The realm of dreams...the realm of fancy...another dimension somewhere beyond the three we know. Beyond the fourth of time as well. Somewhere in the ethers, in the atmosphere, in the realm of fantasy and fancy, where everything is possible, where miracles occur with each breath: That’s where your story exists. In your heart: That’s where your story exists. Encoded into every cell of your being: That’s where your story exists.

Have you ever kept track of your dreams? If you have, you know how important it is to jot them down the moment you wake up. For if you don’t, you’re likely to forget them. It’s the act of writing them down that gives substance to what is otherwise ethereal. It’s the acting of bringing them from the kingdom of dreams into the physical reality of ink on a page that gives them substance, that allows you to connect with them. That allows them to touch you. That, in a very real sense, makes them real.

So it is with your stories. They exist, just as your dreams do. But it’s the act of setting them to the page, of letting one word follow the next and then the next and then the next, that makes them real, that, in fact, “publishes” them.

That’s right: The act of publishing is an act of making public. When you take your stories, those stories that have an existence only in your heart, an existence even your brain-mind may not know about, when you take them and draw out the letters, stretch those letters into words and those words into sentences and paragraphs, magic happens.

You take something that only exists in the airwaves, like a radio signal that broadcasts at a frequency not normally audible by the human ear, not normally picked up by even the most sophisticated audio equipment. You take that signal, which is your story, and translate it into a frequency that is audible. In doing that, you give it — and yourself — a new kind of life. A life in the public realm. You are giving it a place on the radio dial of your life.

Perhaps you don’t seek to have your work published in a conventional sense. Perhaps you don’t and perhaps you do. At this moment, it doesn’t matter. At this moment, all that matters is answering that call to write. All that matters is tuning into that frequency, that normally inaudible signal, the one on which your Muse alone broadcasts, tuning into it and taking down everything you hear. Everything. Without judgment. Without question. Without second-guessing. Without censoring.

Your Muse is broadcasting to you on your private frequency. It is for you to tune in with the radio dial of your heart and transcribe. No, you will not be “channeling.” You will be co-creating — taking the energy of your Muse, running it through the filters of your language, your experience and your willingness to open, and committing the resulting words, thoughts, ideas, scenes, poems, memories and songs to the printed page.

You are turning what already exists in the air around you (just as radio signals exist in the air around you) into something physical. Something you can touch. Something you can hold. Something you can read. In doing that, you are giving it a life it would not otherwise have.

If nothing else happens beyond that, you will have accomplished a breath-by-breath miracle. Even if no one else every sees it or reads it, it hasIf you do move from that point to print, that’s an extra bonus.

But that’s not our starting point. Our starting point is you. You and your Muse. You and the stories. You and the word.