Chapter 13: Evolving A Muse

And just like that, I had a new chapter and two new ideas. Evolution and a metamuse. I’d evolve a muse from a metamuse. It was obvious once I remembered how God will want evolution explained in Prologue 5, “God’s Will,” once I write it. I stopped, wrote Prologue 5, and read it. There it was on page 121. Just as I’d hoped: God’s evolution was the answer! Evolution, God will have pointed out, is a universal, substrate neutral process that lets simple forms give rise to more complex forms. You and I had evolved from life forms as simple as bacteria. Bacteria had evolved from water, minerals, carbon, oxygen, and nitrogen. Water, minerals, carbon, oxygen and nitrogen had all evolved from hydrogen. And hydrogen had evolved from the quarks and leptons that condensed after the Big Bang. Evolution took no intelligence and no creativity, which matched my qualifications amaz­ ingly well. But that solution led to another problem: I had no metamuse. It was a problem, but it was a smaller one. Muses are complex, multipurpose creatures: they can inspire anything—art, poetry, music, dance, video games, excuses, lies, marketing, politics. A metamuse would be simpler, and have only have one purpose: to inspire creation of a muse. With evolution, a simple single-pur­ pose metamuse could create a complex full function muse. But that led to my next problem: I couldn’t create a metamuse. I just didn’t have enough cre­ ativity or inspiration to do it. But a metametamuse would be even simpler to create. If I could create a metametamuse, evolution could produce a metamuse, which would then evolve into a muse. And if a metametamuse was too hard for me, then I could create a metametametamuse. It was meta all the way down. Each meta-level would require less creativity. Eventually I’d reach a point where the very small amount of creativity that I had would be sufficient to create a metamuse of the right order. It didn’t take me long to calculate that I had enough creativity to bring a meta171,224,323muse into existence but not enough for a meta171,224,322muse. So I created one. Then I let evolution do its work. Evolution does not require intelligence but it does require time, and since I controlled time in my metanovel, I had all the time I wanted. I could create my meta171,224,323muse4 far enough in the past that evolution would have the time it needed to evolve a muse by the end of this sen­ tence5. I did, and it did, and when I looked up from my keyboard, I saw a the blurred outline of a woman, perhaps a muse. She was ready to speak. But before she could say a word, this chapter, paragraph and sentence came came to a sudden concl 4 This is footnote 4, not meta171,224,323muse raised to the 4th power. 5 Realizing that I could create the metanmuse anywhere in the history of the universe, and unable to con­ trol myself given an open opportunity for a bad pun, I created the meta171,224,323muse from primordial ooze. Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies Antichapter 6: I’m In! The same old phone rang. The same old hand picked it up. “Hello,” said the same old Voice. “Can’t talk,” said the antimuse. “I’m between chapters. He thinks he’s evolved a muse, but he’s evolved me. I’m in. And I’m starting to carry out the plan.” “Good, good!” said the voice. “What’s the next step?” “Can’t tell you right now,” said the antimuse. “Gotta go now. Next chapter’s already start­ ing.” “Goodbye,” said the voice. But the antimuse was already gone. Refs: 5A Small Plot Change73 7The Plan84 Self-Referential Metanovel Writing for Dmmies