Just a question, Jerry. You advocate feeding your muse with a lot of other music (the results of the muse' predecessors). However, I remember hearing an interview with Paul McCartney and he was asked who his favorite classical composer was. McCartney responded that he never listened to classical music, for fear that what he heard would subconsciously come out in a piece that he was creating. He said that as he tended to write less and less he wanted to begin listening to classical music.

So my question is this: how do we keep our muse from stealing the work of another muse, and then sticking the thought in our mind? In addition to being somewhat fickle, they tend to be equally shifty and mischievious. Also, how do we get our muse to multi-task? Mine seems to provide only poetry, or seminal lyrics, but he (or she, I'm not quite sure of the gender of my muse) appears to be bereft of any compositional skills whatsoever. Is there a way that one's muse can network with, say, the muse of Paul McCartney? And what of the muse of those dearly departed? I think of the muse of Jim Croce, or John Denver, Marty Robbins, etc. Surely their work was not complete. Are they in a retirement home for muses? How might we coax them into coming out of retirement?

Eagerly awaiting your muse-inspired response.

Freightdawg