In one of the earlier stories in Neil Gaiman's hugely popular Sandman graphic novel series, a writer is keeping the muse Calliope imprisoned – "demeaned, abused, and hurt" – to fulfil his need for ideas. She is rescued by Morpheus, Lord of Dreams, who visits a curse of "ideas in abundance" upon the writer. He ends up grovelling on the street, clawing out his stories in blood: "a man who falls in love with a paper doll … two old women taking a weasel on holiday … a rose bush, a nightingale, and a black rubber dog collar … make them stop."
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