Just Don't Make It too Complicated

A writers block story. I'm only glad that Calliope eventually got around to me, otherwise I'd have been staring at that blank screen for a very long time.

Just don't make it too complicated. 

Just don't make it too complicated.

The phrase circled round and round in Eliza's head as she glared at the blank sheet of paper in front of her. She gripped her pen tighter, fingers whitening and threatening to give herself writers cramp before she even written a single word.
Three times she'd touched the pen to the paper, and three times she'd lifted it up again, shaking her head in frustration.
How could she possibly write in conditions like this?
She sank her head down onto the wood of the desk at which she sat, and shut her eyes, hoping for some kind of inspiration that would get her writing with her usual vigor. None came.

She sat in her studio, technically the attic, of her house in Newford. It was a small room, and brightly lit from the enormous window in the far wall. Through it she could see the branches of the oak tree that grew in her front garden, and, in the distance, the bay, glinting in the midday sun, and the numerous yachts and fishing boats that bobbed gently on the waves.

Unnoticed by the frustrated writer, the muse Calliope tapped frantically on the window. She sat in a fork in the oak tree, glaring into the house through the pane of glass that separated them. Her long blond hair was unkempt, the Greek robe which her superiors insisted that she wore, despite the changing of the times, tattered and grass-stained. 
'Stupid stupid stupid stupid stupid!' She hissed under her breath as she banged on the glass. 'Stupid stupid woman!' 
Then she amended herself, for she knew that it wasn't completely Eliza's fault. Eliza had been Limited, and that was a horrible thing to have to deal with, especially for someone who expressed herself with words like she did.
'Stupid publisher. Stupid stupid publisher.'
Normally a muse can pass through any barrier, thick or thin, to get to their designated writer. But when a writer has been limited, frustrated and annoyed, there is a kind of mental box that is put up around them, that the muse can't get into, and the writer can't get out of.

Eliza was the best writer of all Calliope's clients, she wrote such beautiful prose, and such amazing plots that it astounded even Calliope, who'd seen so many great writers.
Edgar Allan Poe was her work, and she was rather proud of it.
But Eliza had her manuscript sent back to her, with a short note saying 'Nice, but try again, and just don't make it too complicated this time.'

The problem with that bit of advice is this response: "What on earth is that supposed to mean? What is complicated? I don't see any complications. Should I strip down the prose? Drop all my adjectives? Pull out some characters? Put them in? Change the end, the beginning, the middle?"

And this was precisely the pit that Eliza had fallen into.

Eventually Calliope gave up, and continued down to her next client, who had, to the muse's amusement, been staring at a blank computer screen, trying to think of something to write about the topic "Just don't make it too complicated."