the muse oddly delivers; the internal editor is puzzled

(Hmm, that headline reads like one of the subtitles of the later Steed-and-Peel Avengers episodes.)

Anyway. I made it to 50,000 words on November 27th, and I didn't even do it perfectly.

My goal was to write 2000 words a day in November, in anticipation of the inevitable slumps that occur mid-novel and other Life stuff that often gets in the way. This meant there were days when it was a feat just to get 500 words written. Most of the time, I was able to keep up with this daily word count, mainly because I am a morning person, so I could get most of it done before going to the day job. Dr Wicked's Write or Die software helped immensely, too. The thought of being subjected to That Earworm-inducing Hanson Song if I stopped typing for more than a few seconds was enough to keep me, well, typing.

My best writing session occurred on November 21st, between 7 and 10 pm. I went to a cello concert at a local church. They have an amazing music program and regularly feature guest performers. This concert featured Steven Doane, who is a world-class cellist. He played Bach, Poulenc, and Brahms. I scribbled in the notebook I'd brought with me while he played, and when I went home and typed it, it was just over 1500 words!

Having participated in NaNoWriMo twice before, my internal editor was at least familiar with the process, even if he is still bewildered by it. Have I ever told you about him? He's slightly taller than me, and quite good-looking with very dark hair, almost black, and he usually wears a dark turtleneck and khaki pants. His shoes are always polished. He sits in a high-backed chair near a window with the sun coming through and making a nice pattern on the hardwood floor in an otherwise empty room. I'm not sure where he came from or why he picked me (or got stuck with me), and I still don't know his name. And although he's wary of this high-speed drafting process, even after witnessing it three times, he's at least willing to sit and read and wait in the corner because he knows there will be a substantial draft for him to pore over and fix soon. He loves that bit.

My muse, on the other hand, is a little girl. Sometimes she wears a dress; sometimes she's in a t-shirt and overalls and tennis shoes. She wears her hair up in pigtails with either outfit. She's always playing with something - dolls, train set, paints, legos, lincoln logs. I once found her attempting origami, but she was using construction paper, which wasn't working out too well. Her room is well-lit with plush carpet. Toys are scattered everywhere, and the shelves along the walls are all full of more fun stuff to fiddle with. I don't know her name either. I do know that if I show up on a regular basis, she's more willing to show up, and as long as there's something to play with, she'll feed me ideas. The internal editor looks on from his room next to hers, and I see him shake his head sometimes at what she comes up with. She doesn't think in terms of boundaries or plausibility. She just tosses out ideas and gives me a "take it or leave it" look.

This time, she gave me a realistic story. No fantasy. No ghosts. No magic. Just a this-could-really-happen story. The internal editor and I kept glancing at each other during the plotting process. This isn't the sort of thing I write. Jane Austen and a few other things aside, most of what I read has some sort of out-there twist on reality, hence its influence on my writing. Contemporary fiction just isn't my thing. But there was that "take-it-or-leave it" look, so what could we do?

I think the reason she did this was because I was out of practice with speed writing. I've spent the last two years writing from an academic, analytical point of view for my master's degree - even though it was a creative writing degree, there was a lot of scrutinizing how things were written - and a large part of that time was spent on my thesis, which was a big revision of my first NaNoWriMo novel. Rather a slow process all around.

I think she wanted to ease me back into the process. This real-life story is as basic as it gets - how things are, what causes them to change, struggle with the change, make decisions and take actions to deal with the change, what effect has it all had in the end. She wasn't having any of this layer of magical realism and whatnot.

Even though I had the whole thing plotted out ahead of time, I still started November doubting that I'd make it to 50,000 words by the end of the month with this story. Without that layer of twist, which perhaps I rely on too much, I worried that I'd run out of story too soon. But nearly every day, I managed 2000-ish words, and although I got to 50,000 words before November ran out, there was still a sizable chunk of story to tell. Since the average novel length is around 90,000 words, I'm not concerned that I didn't get it all down in 50,000 words. Amazed, yes. But not concerned.

So I'm spending December adding the other 40,000 words, which is only about 1300 words a day. I think I can comfortably finish the story in that amount of words and time, and it keeps my morning writing routine going anyway.

Weirded out by the whole experience, but we're managing.