The Ups and Downs Of The Writing Life.

The other night I actually got to be rather early - or at least early for me. I fell asleep fairly fast which isn't typical for me and slept well.

Well, that is until I woke up four hours later to go to the bathroom. Typically that's not such a big deal since you just go back to bed after, which I did do. However, I was unable to go back to sleep.

I laid in bed feeling the warmth of the blankets and my husband next to me. I got comfortable, but something was afoot.

Was it a mouse? Nay, there have been no signs of mice here. Was it a family pet? Nay, they are all in the front rooms and were quiet. Was it Gideon? Nay he was blissfully asleep. It was the muse at work.

Of course she'd pick the time to visit when I want to sleep. It would never fail to happen that way, would it?

Along with her was a vaguely familiar person. She hasn't a name, or much of a life at this point in time, but I knew who she was. She was a character from the novel I'm plotting, researching and preparing for NaNoWriMo.

Yea, I know what you are thinking. NaNo is months away. It is. In fact it's a good 9 months away. Howver, I like to take my time and not rush to prepare plots. I also need a great deal of research for this type of novel and as a result it's a process that takes many months of work.

So, here I am lying in bed. The character is there showing me things. Telling me things she's done (or will do) in the novel. Again this is great. Never has a character come to me this early in the plotting stages. This is rather a breakthrough, but does she have to do this when I want to sleep?

Knowing I'd regret it, I roll over and try to go back to sleep. Nope. She's not relenting. I reach for the notebook by my bed kept for these rare moments, only to find it moved. We had just cleaned that night, so it was in a slightly different location. I found it and scribbled the information into the notebook.

So, now that I appeased her I could go back to sleep, right? Not a chance. I was wide awake now.. after just four hours of sleep. I got up and went online. The PC screen tends to make my eyes sleepy.. so there I sat waiting for slumber to come for me.

This information told me a bit about the plot, character and novel. That's all good. The problem is that this information made doing the planned genre (mystery) impossible since the readers would be a step ahead of the sleuth rather than behind or at least alongside the sleuth. So, now I have to identify the new genre and learn the new genre and the format of that plus do months of research for the plot... suddenly NaNo does not seem all that far away.

Such is the life of a writer.