This column is part of a weekly installment of Pete's Dog Day Afternoons by writer Pete Hurrey. You can view more of his column articles here.

For the longest time I wrestled with my personal muse every time I landed a new project. Since the types of writing I do are of such a wide variety requiring many different voices and styles and phrasing, I really need that intermezzo – a cleansing of the mental pallet – to get the next round of creative juices flowing.

Take my commercials for instance: One I write in the morning may be for an insurance company and needs to be serious and professional and to the point in the message delivery. Another, say later that afternoon, may be for a bar. In that case the script needs to capture the flavor which is pervasive and cogent to that particular house of legal euphoria. Why else does anyone go to a bar, other than to experience a momentary sense of calm euphoria? Beats me. If I can't get a bit bombed at a bar, I need help!

Now being a smoker, I used to go out, pace around, light the thing, take a few puffs and use that time for my brain detergent between writing subjects. And that works most of the time. However, there are those times when my muse digs in her heels and refuses to inspire. That's when I started experimenting with different kinds of mental flushing.

I began searching for people I knew IRL (In real life). Now that was an interesting project and certainly had some rather surprising and enlightening results. To date, I have found 5 women I know in less than proper attire on the Internet. Some accompanied by extraordinary prose and interests! You know, like: Beat me and I'll be your slave! That kind of thing.

Now take novels I ghost: I usually have a pretty darn good idea what I am going to say long before I start writing, so I don't need much help from my muse and my brain certainly doesn't need a good flushing.

Then there are my own novels.

You see, when I write my own stories, the only thing I know for sure is a vague subject, a rather ephemeral character, and a bare snippet of a plot. I write without an outline, without a table of contents or with any guidance whatsoever prior to beginning the story.

Don't use this as an example in your creative writing class, boys and girls; it's a sure way to fail the course.

What happens is this: I start blindly tapping away at the keyboard and a story emerges, or at least a relatively cogent sentence or two. Then I sit back and read it. Then I type some more. By the end of the first three or four hours, I have maybe five or six pages written. Then comes the brain cramp! I mean that's as far as I can go. I think the most I have written on a new novel in the first sitting is 8 pages.
Pleased with my progress, I shut down the computer, go the fridge and have a beer and plop down in front of the couch and watch whatever comes on the tube. The problem is, that at this point in the novel, I still have no Earthly idea what the story is about and where I am in the story or where it is headed; most of the time I don't even know if I like the first character or not yet.

So, then comes the next writing session: Maybe the next morning, the next week, or if I am contracted to do something else, like actually earn a living, or write someone else's Pulitzer-prize-winning novel, it may be six months before I get back to my own novel. And guess what? I need help! My brain is frozen stiff and needs to thaw out. Searching for neighbors is fun, but not even close to providing the brain scrubbing I need.

So I let my muse take over and she jumps on the computer and starts searching the Internet randomly; page after page of drivel and all kinds of junk. After about 5 minutes of watching everything fly by, some disgusting stuff at that, I get fed up and throw the muse out of the chair and hit the novel.

You know what, some of the best writing I have ever done follows this brain tissue bathing ... Golly, I can't think of another thing to write, here muse, come on, that's right, I need to cleanse my brain again ... Hey! That’s disgusting!