More Muse Musings

A while back, I made reference to the Poetry Muse, and how she sometimes pays me a visit and sets up shop in my head for like a week. Her sister...hmm...I'm sure which Muse helps with writing thriller novels. It's not Thalia, the muse of comedy, since Nightmares definitely is not a comedy, though it has its light-hearted moments. And it's not Melpomene, since the book is not a tragedy is the classical sense. Maybe I'll call her "Novelle." So Novelle, it would appear, is equally fickle and persistent.

A few weeks ago, I was touching up Nightmares. The kids were asleep, and I wanted to get down a few ideas that I had been working through in my head during the day. So I typed, typed, typed for about 20 or so minutes. When I had finished, I did a word count: 60,575, which represented just a little less than 300 new words.

I said to myself, "Time for bed," closed the laptop lid, and started to walk out of the office.

Then an idea came to me, and I didn't want to lose it. So I sat back down, opened it up, and started typing again. Another 100 words.

"OK, now I'm ready for bed." But as I started to leave the room, the same thing happened. So I sat down once more. 120 additional words.

Then I really went to bed.

And I wonder why I'm so tired all the time...