The good news this week: I’m exercising on a regular basis. I’m hammering out the days that are best for hanging out on FB, Twitter, and G+. I’m getting better at tweeting/liking/promoting people’s blog posts as soon as I finish reading them.

Even better, I’m in the midst of a Work-From-Bed marathon, and it’s really nice. (Napoleon might be enjoying it more than me.)

The bad news: My muse has gone a little cray-cray.

As most of you are probably aware, National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo, aka my favorite month of the year) begins in barely a week. Outlining and prepping my still-untitled steampunk novel has been at the top of my priority list this month, and for the most part it’s gone well.

I’ve got short but solid character bios. I have a name for the country in which the tale is set. I’ve got a brand-new character that emerged out of the ether and refused to leave (the “accidental queen” mentioned below). I even have an incredibly sketchy, incredibly cliched synopsis! Try this on for size:

A horrific attack plunges the nation of Vorewin into a war it is ill-equipped to win. Can two girl geniuses, a reluctant witch, an ambitious soldier, and an accidental queen join forces and save the land?

Masterful, no?

So things are going well… or were going well. Because my muse has decided to jump ship and go rogue.

Never mind this NaNoWriMo thing, she says. What about that fantasy novel you’ve been playing with for a year? I have IDEAS for it.

And hey, she adds, remember how you said you’d never write a contemporary or futuristic novel? I’ve got the BEST idea for a near-future paranormal romance!  Then she dangles the carrot: You can even add Pierce to it!

So for the last week or so, I have been frantically scribbling everything that isn’t my NaNoWriMo novel. I have thousands of words worth of brainstorms for how to plug up my many plot holes in PATH TO THE PEACOCK THRONE (which may be getting a new title one of these days… THE PEACOCK QUEEN, perhaps?). I have all these scrawled pages with ideas for this absolutely ridiculous paranormal romance thing. The heroine even has a name–Falco, a woman who is part bird-shifter and has a very complicated past with Pierce, who is all mysterious and might maybe be a mercenary and/or a magic wielder. With a motorcycle. And leather pants. *fans self*

As far as the next week is concerned, I am going to give in and let my runaway muse have her way. I’ll be hammering out scenes for PEACOCK and jotting down ideas for the paranormal romance. If I can steal a minute or two for other things, I’ll try to massage the NaNo novel. Hopefully by the time November 1st rolls around, I’ll have exhausted the random frenzy that’s taken over my brain.

WriMos, how goes your preparation? Anyone else ever dealt with a muse-gone-rogue?

Be sure to swing by and wave hello to the other ROWers who are checking in today!