(NaNoWriMoWhoas) Me vs. Muse ~ Muse Wins!

*post relocation* (from Nov. 18th 2012 post on my NaNoWriMoWhoas blog)

By now it's common knowledge that I am working on NaNoWriMo. I decided I needed a place to vent about my struggles, failures and successes. I might even invite guest WriMos to write here if I can figure out how to get blogger to cooperate.  It might even become a neat little community to carry us through until the next November.

For now, I have a confession to get off my chest. At least it feels like a confession.

I have been writing since forever, but started most actively 9ish years ago. I wrote a lot in college and had a really long non-writing dry spell. You can read about some of the trials of me being an active, unpublished writer, here.

So, I started NaNoWriMo as a way to kickstart my solo career in writing. I will be perfectly honest, I have been working on a novel since August. I ran into a wall with that, and I started NaNoWriMo with another idea I had swirling around in my brain.

Halfway through NaNoWriMo, I hit another wall. Only for me, it wasn't halfway. I am a week behind everyone who started on November 1st. I had to work fast to catch up. Suddenly, I realized my muse and I were working on two different novels. Muse was working on the original novel from August, while I was trying to spew words into a text app for a completely different novel. Muse was much more in touch with my characters. Our characters…(shhh, Muse, I am writing this blog post.)

Switching gears, I am now working on the first novel that I started in August. Is that cheating? My word count is completely authentic. I did not alter it all. The number is the number of words I have written in the novel I want to work with, and only that novel, even though I had almost 23K written for the ditched novel.

Both novels have the same main characters, but are totally different genres. One is Urban Fantasy. The other is a traditional, slightly cozy, mystery. *surprised face* The characters  conspired behind my back with Muse, and I got the clue phone yesterday. It was kind of painful. Muse threw it at me. I guess it had been ringing for awhile.

NaNoWriMo has been an incredible experience so far, and I will be using the word sprints and enjoying the wonderful fast friendships to get me to the completion of this draft, and beyond. 

Eventually, I hope people will enjoy my mystery writing as much as I do. Time will tell what other characters will whisper in my ear. Hopefully they won't throw too many phones at me.