The Whatever Files

Mail Order Muses

As a customer of Mail-Order-Muses, I've been offered a free inspiration for every new customer I sign up. Mail-order-Muses, or MoMs as they like to be known, are extremely popular in their native Japan, where writers are habitually churning out four or five full sets of encyclopedias worth of books every week.

MoMs CEO Ayuma Satō has been notoriously tight lipped about the source of his muses, staunchly refusing to either confirm or deny the persistent rumours that it has any connection to the recently discovered fact that several of the lesser hells are now virtually devoid of demons.

MoMs first came to prominence in 2007, when Tamiko Sugiyama, script writer for the hugely popular podshow Godzilla vs. Happy Kitty revealed that she has a MoM. So prolific was Tamiko's output, that the show was often being screened for 17 hours every day. Indeed, the phenomenal AI controlled 'Bullet Animation' technique was developed, just to keep up. Producing animation in 'real time', almost as quickly as it is scripted.

The company guarantees results, and is proud of it's record. It has only had one complainant in its entire history. That was a Mr. Wallace Greenboum of Arkansas, who reportedly purchased a MoM in order to write more successful complaints letters. So successful was Mr. Greenboum that many companies had to close their complaints department, when all of their staff quit en-masse as a direct result of his letters. Naturally MoMs became victims of their own success in this specific instance. Fortunately for them, they employed their own in-house muse to write counter complaints. Eventually these were serialised by the Arkansas Post, and were so popular that Björn Ulvaeus turned their correspondence into a four-hour musical.

So. Can I sign you up for a mail order Muse? No? How about the Whatever Contest then?

You get GPs and free merit badges just for participating in this months contest. Now that's an inspiration.




My new muse is Japanese, and she wants me to introduce herself to you all. I'm having trouble pronouncing her proper name, but roughly translated, her name means

"Write something now. You write now, or something very painful happen. Write. Write!"