Musing the muse

11.25.07

Five and a half days and 14,700 words to go.  I want to reach 50,000 words by the end of the month.  I really do.  Now, there’s no way my story will be told in 50,000 words, and I recognize that.  My characters are seeming like real people, with jobs, and histories, and speech impediments.  But all the ways they are interconnected and the means with which they will resolve their issues remain a mystery – even to me. 

 

Floating around my head are the scene-by-scene bits and pieces, the “today everybody’s in the psych unit, but where will they be tomorrow?” kind of stuff.  Baby steps that get my people together and get them moving in the direction of the big finish.

 

I don’t have a clue as to what that big finish is yet.

 

Meanwhile.  Life intervenes.  Children need baths, everybody needs clean clothes, there’s a Thanksgiving meal to cook, and a house to clean up so we can welcome guests.  There are friends to see, and a job to go to, a column to write, and sniffles, coughs, cramps and aches.  Carpel Tunnel flares up and it’s hard for me to lift anything heavier than a full coffee mug (thank the stars I can still lift a full coffee mug).  And I dream of making a living at this? 

 

Yes.  Yes I do.  And this is why…

 

Because there comes a point around page 100 where the story I’m telling ceases to be my own, and begins to belong to the characters.  I am just a vessel now, the not-so-arrogant creator who’s only true responsibility is to make sure the sentences hit the page in the right order while making some kind of sense.  My job is to write without using the word “really” in every sentence.

 

Did I know that Olivia had twin daughters who died shortly after their birth?  No, I did not.  Olivia told Jaxx every detail and I cried my eyes out while transcribing the conversation.  The control-freak in my head was screaming, “What?  Where did this come from?  This background makes Olivia important to the novel, but you can’t introduce someone important on page 100, are you crazy?”

 

That night I went to bed stunned and emotionally exhausted.  As I fell asleep… I realized that Jaxx’s boyfriend was the father of those twins, the boy-villain in Olivia’s story who was unable to step up to the plate and be a man in the face of tragedy.  How does a teen-ager who runs away when he’s needed most become a man who, ten years later, embraces life to the fullest with a “no regrets” policy?

 

Well.  All will eventually be revealed.

 

Because that’s what my writer’s brain does.  It holds all characters in the subconscious, turning them this way and that, examining emotion, motivation, and human nature.  It adds more and more dimension to each person, and each story problem, until clarity bursts forth with all the subtly of fireworks. 

 

And there am I, the vessel, the center of everything, God of the world I have created.  I am ready to sit back and watch the events unfold.

 

Except my child is begging me to play with her.  My husband is lamenting the pile of whites that is growing ever larger next to the washing machine.  The dog is whining at the door because all the other dogs in the neighborhood get to go for walks.  I am scheduled to work 4 of the next 5 and a half days. 

 

The Muse will have to wait.  It will sit and stew on what’s supposed to happen next.  It will reveal itself in brilliant flashes of brilliant dialogue while I’m driving the car, and will disappear by the time I have paper and pen in hand. 

 

Sometimes I will sit and type words that don’t seem to be going anywhere. I will write less-than-brilliant dialogue as I search my memory in vain for those sneaky flashes of good stuff.  None of that is the Muse, however; that all happens when I pretend I’m showing up to write but all I really want to do is browse the internet.

 

NaNoWriMo: 50,000 Words or Bust will have at least given me a 50,000 word head-start on a new story.  Fortunately for me, the Muse will keep the story going all by itself until I show up at the keyboard ready to type.  I will discover a detail that has to be added to an early chapter so that a later chapter makes sense.  My characters will infiltrate my waking hours, and run around doing mad things in my dreams.  They will love each other and I will love them.  And that’s really all that matters.  Really.