The description NOT given by Stephen King: The muse-guy “scatter[s] creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter . . . .”
That's the opposite of the way novelist Stephen King describes the writer's muse in his book, <em>On Writing: A Memoir of the Craft," </em>first published in 2000. King's book is an essential read for all aspiring writers -- not just novelists, but non-fiction writers like historians also.
Here's the full context of what King said about the "muse-guy" for writers:
<em>There is a muse, but he’s not going to come fluttering down into your writing room and scatter creative fairy-dust all over your typewriter or computer. He lives in the ground. He’s a basement kind of guy. You have to descend to his level, and once you get down there you have to furnish an apartment for him to live in. You have to do all the grunt labor, in other words, while the muse sits and smokes cigars and admires his bowling trophies and pretends to ignore you. Do you think it’s fair? I think it’s fair. He may not be much to look at, that muse-guy, and he may not be much of a conversationalist, but he’s got inspiration. It’s right that you should do all the work and burn all the mid-night oil, because the guy with the cigar and the little wings has got a bag of magic. There’s stuff in there that can change your life. Believe me, I know.</em>
