Make Nice With Your Muse

by Lindsey Loucks, posted in Critique Partners, First Drafts, Ideas, Mood, NaNoWriMo, Sequels, Story Ideas, The Grave Winner, What Gifts She Carried, Word Count, Writing
Image courtesy of Stuart Miles / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

 

No no NaNoWriMo. I won’t participate in you this year or next year or never but I will cheer for participants from the sidelines.

 

Why? I’m a slow writer, like 1000 words in three hours slow. I try not to stress about making things look pretty in a first draft, but I do anyway. Plus, I have to stop and picture what’s happening in my head. It’s like watching a movie in painfully slow motion.

 

But I’m using NaNoWriMo as inspiration to learn how to not worry so much and speed up the pictures. I’m also using it to get inspired to write after I get home from school. I used to think a sleepy brain tells sleepy stories, but a sleepy brain is the norm now, and sleepy brains still have stories to tell.

 

The story I should be telling is the sequel to The Grave Winner, but it’s still coming together in my head. So my muse has hammered another story into my brain (ow!) while I let the sequel percolate. That’s the story I’m working on now, and I feel like I should make nice with my muse in case it flips me the bird and abandons me.

 

This new story has ghosts in space, in case you’re wondering. It also has some sexy times in it because it’s not YA. The title is A Boy and Her Scratch.

 

The sequel to The Grave Winner is coming, I promise! Please don’t hate me, Fabulous Editor Melissa and my Must Have Critique Partners and my Totally Tubular beta reader and everyone else who has made it this far through my ramblings!

 

Anyone else have a muse? Anyone else pet it and feed it cookies so it won’t flip you the bird?

 

P.S. I voted today!

6 thoughts on “Make Nice With Your Muse”

  1. Good luck with The Grave Winner. As one who is also writing a new story, I know the difficulties in trying to order your thoughts to write a coherent story.

    I too will not participate in NanNoWriMo as I feel the pressure would make me write jibberish that’d take to long to edit. I doubt I’d enjoy writing the first draft as I’d be worried about word count, and not writing a good story.

    Thanks for posting.

  2. I can’t wait for the cover to TGW!
    And I know what you mean with the muse. I’m trying to do NaNo this year, but my heart’s not really in it, so the muse is kinda flipping me the bird. But I’m treading on. Some novel is better than no novel 🙂
    PS: I didn’t vote, since our elections are in December 😉

  3. Okay, okay, I won’t crack the whip or even pout… much. :c) I won’t even whine at your muse that she’s making me ***Suh-uh-uh-uh-uh-fer***. I will, however, absolutely *insist* that you fess up when you’re done and get with making lots of noise and publicity when A Boy and Her Scratch is done and off to whatever publisher you choose so I can read *that* as soon as it’s out.

    I *am* doing NaNoWriMo because when I write, I write *fast*, and the word count thing actually spurs me on quite nicely. It keeps me from going back and stabbing my poor book to death with The Red Pen of Doom before it gets past chapter 3.

  4. Dana – I agree. Writing gibberish just so you can reach your word count seems counter-productive if you’re going to have to edit it out anyway.

    Stef – I can’t wait either! Some novel is definitely better than no novel!

    Melissa – Yay! You’re not mad! I’ll definitely announce it from the rooftops when I’m finished with A Boy and Her Scratch. Can I borrow some of your fast writing skills, pretty please?

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