I'd just crawled into bed after popping a melatonin to help me get to sleep, when I realized I never blogged today. Somehow yesterday and today had melded together such that my memory of blogging yesterday morning seemed to have taken place today.

So it's 10:37 p.m. and I'm sitting up in bed with the radio on (WSQX "Your jazz and news alternative" minus that harpy Amy Goodman). When the melatonin kicks in, I may very well enter another dimension mid-post, so bear with me.

Tonight's topic relates to writing process. A question I always pose to my students: do you prefer to outline or to write by the seat of your keyboard?

Invariably, I get the self-proclaimed creative writer declaring that outlines hamper her creativity, or stifle his inspiration, and that they are so wooden and difficult to follow once you start writing. Then I inform the class that they are required to write an outline before they begin writing the screenplay, and I receive an assortment of eye rolling, arms crossed, seething looks of hatred, and the few students who know they better kiss my fucking ass because after all, I hold the grade book in my hand. And occasionally, students who "get it" and could probably teach me a thing or two.

So, you've probably guessed which side of the debate I come down on. Yes, I'm an outliner. BUT I am not a slave to the outline. Once I write an outline to get my head in the correct direction, I start writing, and I never end up sticking to the outline. The outline gets revised several times. The best ideas come to me while I'm actually writing - suddenly a branch or a twist or a line comes to mind that the outline could never have spawned. I'm off and running with the Muse, that sexy gorgeous thang who teases and beckons and sometimes leaves me hanging on for dear life.

The outline is the thing that I always return to. Like scales. You know when you've been away from your music, you run scales or arpeggios to get warmed up. Or like those running lights on a landing strip (or take-off strip) that guide you when it's foggy like it often is in Ithaca on a spring night in May. I write myself into a corner, or I just get winded when the Muse runs me ragged and then slips out the back for a cigarette while I'm staring at the ceiling thinking, "Now where was I going with this?" That old standby the Outline is there to pick me up when the Muse is nowhere to be found. And then she returns when I least expect it.

Inevitably, my students realize this, when half-way through the semester they come to me during office hours and say with a note of complete surprise, "Y'know, I never thought I was an outline kind of guy, but I gotta say this really works." And I smile and nod and say, "Well, good. It's great to find an approach that works for you as a writer, 'cause it's different for everyone." Then they tell me what an awesome teacher I am, and I remind them that the deadline for the script they're working on is tomorrow at 2 p.m.

The melatonin has hit my system. Feels like the top of my head is detaching like the saucer section, so I will bid you farewell until tomorrow. Temping at a bank for the next two weeks. I'm pretty sure the Muse will be on a cruise drinking mai tais and flirting with all the cute deck hands for the next fortnight. *konk*