I have a flighty Muse

Okay, so NaNo time has rolled around yet again. I didn't sign up this time - I decided to go Sweat with Sven instead on the 10th since I'm still waiting on my edits. Since finishing Sam's story, um, I mean Personal Protection, I've had a hard time getting settled into any one story. Lately I've been sort of hopping between three, none of them really talking to me the way I prefer when I'm writing. But this week, a formerly-shelved muse flounced into the room, plonked herself down in Gizmo Guy's chair and started snarking at me about her story.

"Why did you give up on it? You finished it, right? You subbed it once, right?" she demanded. "The story was good, the idea unique. Besides shapeshifters are hot right now. You're nuts letting it molder. You should pull it out and do something with it." She leaned forward in her chair, a dangerously evil sparkle in her eye. "Besides, I've had an idea about it. It'll be darker, more paranormal. Sexier. There'll be wolves and threesomes and danger, oh my."

Who am I to deny a muse the opportunity to inspire me? So I shrugged and agreed to look at it again. Because my writing style has changed fairly dramatically in the last year, instead of editing the old copy, I'm starting fresh.

It's not going as fast as I'd like, though it's still keeping up to NaNo daily wordcount standards, I suppose. I'm not going to worry about final word count, the original story was a novella length, and that would be fine with me if it stayed short. And if it goes longer, equally fine. I've also changed the way I approach writing a bit. I'm finding the FastDraft method of writing a really crappy first draft leaves me feeling very unhappy when I'm facing that awful mess and having to rewrite it as a second draft. Now as I'm writing forward, I'm working a bit slower and making sure each day's writing has more depth so there's not as many major edits to do on the second pass.

At least that's the plan.

But OMG it's proving I am not a plotter. Okay, make that my MUSE is not a plotter. She's sort of a flibbertigibbet, I've discovered. You see, yesterday she dictated an outline for a scene that would bring the hero and heroine together for the first time. Linear storyline, the scene advanced the external plot and revealed things about both characters. All good. So I started fleshing it out as she dictated. I got less than a page into it and BAM, the muse suddenly changes the storyline we'd agreed upon and the heroine starts talking to a ghost.

"WTF?" I exclaimed. "You never said there were going to be ghosts in this story. Shapeshifting wolves, yes, a merman, yes, a menage, definitely. But a ghost?"

In a very unladylike gesture (darn it, she's been hanging around me too long), she flipped me off. "You said you wanted it more paranormal, didn't you? Go with it."

Two pages later, instead of having the hero come to the heroine the way we'd agreed, BAM, the muse has the heroine trouncing out of the cabin and spying on the hero with the antagonist as they're both standing on the beach naked.

"Um, where is this going here, muse? Wasn't Victoria supposed to stay in her cottage because she's afraid of the wolves? Oh, and considering both the guys are naked, wouldn't the heroine think they getting it on with each other? I thought it was supposed to be a M/F/M menage, not a M/M/F."

"So, M/M/F is hot right now, haven't you heard?" she replied with an airy wave of her hand. "Besides, they're not getting it on, they're in a confrontation because Darek is trying to protect the heroine from the bad guy. Plus they both shifted from their other states, so of course they'd be naked." She narrowed her eyes at me. "Didn't you READ what I dictated? Sheesh!"

All right, I can work with that slight change of plans, could even be fun. But yeah, as I've said before, "Hi, I'm Leah, and I am NOT a PLOTTER."

And my muse can be a real b*tch. Which, considering she's dealing with shapeshifting wolves, shouldn't surprise me.