Duplicitous Muse! She SAID it would be a short story...

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Just a short story idea, She said. Just a quick little fairy-tale-esque short story inspired by the plot ambiguities in a recent Tori Amos song. It'll just take a few hours to dash out the rough draft, She says.

So I sit down and dash out 2000 words, at the end of which the main character is still 9 years old and has only just met the ghost/enchanted noble/other main charcter.

I email it to my husband at the office, just to prove that I do actually write sometimes and not spend all day playing video games. He emails back, "Obviously it needs a lot of work, but it looks like you've got the start of a fantastic novel here. That R0X0Rs!"

A novel. A novel.

I did not sign on for another novel idea. Am I not working on enough already?

At this point, the Muse says, "Teehee! Did I say 'short story?' Maybe I understated a little. Oops!"

At least that means I don't have to write the whole rough draft in one sitting.

Grr..... I won't bother asking if this ever happened to anyone else, as I'm sure it has. But please feel free to share examples so I don't feel so alone amongst my, er, mixed blessings. Were you happy? Sad? Annoyed? Daunted?

[TemlynWriting]

Hee hee...you're a trip, Nicole. :)

[zarch]

A few days ago, I sat down to write a short story that had been bugging me. But by the time I had written eight pages, the assassin still hadn't shot the protagonist...AND I thought I needed to take a few hundred pages to explain why indeed the assassin was stalking my main character.

I just finished the first draft of another manuscript (and am taking a break from editing/revising right now), so my assassin book will have to wait.

I know exactly how you feel, Nicole. But at least we've got a starting point for our next manuscripts!

[PattiTheWicked]

I know exactly what you mean. I sat down about three years ago to write a short little piece on what a character might have experienced at the battle of Culloden. Seventeen pages into it, I realized I had the first chapter of my WIP.

376 pages later, that chapter has since been deleted, but you know what? I learned one very important thing.

OUR MUSES LIE.

[alanna]

and very well they lie too. For instance, in my current WIP the muse said the character would get losta nd have to run away from rock-people...but no. I get to that part, and are there rock people? nope, just a little old man who's out to eat my main character. SHEESH!

[Jamesaritchie]

I've never had a length problem. If I sit down to write a short story, it comes out a short story. My muse lies in other ways, such as telling me this next one is definitely the one that will sell to The New Yorker.

[KimJo]

One of my muses keeps promising ideas for short stories and nonfiction for magazines, but she never delivers.

[Christine N.]

Mine has to cut back on the caffeine. It's what, the fifteenth? And I've written 19,821 words this month already. She just won't stop yakking in my ear, and me, my fingers just won't stop running away from me.

No more Chai Lattes for you, missy.

[alanna]

I need to give mine some Chai Lattes. Or chocolate covered expresso beans...


I think I'll settle for some rosemary and eucalyptus aromatherapy.

[Tirjasdyn]

I did not sign on for another novel idea. Am I not working on enough already?


By now you should know the answer to that is no. Besides muses only sleep when you're looking for them.

[Birol]

Any writer who has been published at least once should know by now never to trust their muse. Right now, mine's off researching 101 Uses for Belly Button Lint.

[Mistook]

That's the thing about muses. They have no idea all the work invovled. Their job is done the minute an idea forms. It's our horrible job to present that idea to the world and do it justice.

[PattiTheWicked]

I sometimes think about pimping my muse out to writers who have lost theirs. That way, I'd get a break and my muse could keep itself busy, maybe helping someone else out in the process. Everyone's a winner.

Muse Pimping: It's a victimless crime.

[Garpy]

'....I've never had a length problem.....'


I- uh...no, maybe this isn't the right forum for that type of cheap gag. I'll shut right up.

[Lyra Jean]

My muse likes to throw characters in my novel. "I promise," she says, "it will be a walk on walk off character." Oh wait this lady has a troubled relationship with her daughter she would make a good subplot. Argghh.

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

My muse lies in other ways, such as telling me this next one is definitely the one that will sell to The New Yorker.My Muse leaves me to make that sort of prediction all by myself. What I get are "really good feelings about the appropriateness of this story to that market/contest/anthology" So far my predictions have been 50%-50%. One time, on the basis of that "really good feeling," I entered an entry-fee-bearing contest put on by a new magazine for its debut issue--a totally not-smart thing to do--and I won the grand prize. Another time, all I got was a very nice handwritten note on the rejection slip from the anthology editor (which is still much much nicer than, say, a Realms of Fantasy blue slip of death or a "didn't grab my interest" half-sheet from the F&SF Slush God). So we don't exactly have any conclusive evidence as to whether that "really good feeling" is trustworthy.

Not that my Muse cares about markets. "What, are you still wasting time having thoughts about that piece? It's done, honey. It's done and in the mail. Fugeddaboutit. Now, listen up, I got this stunner of an idea for you. Won't take you but a half-hour to dash it out, promise!"


Hi Tirjasdyn! Long time no see, totally my fault, sorry 'bout that...

[Susan Gable]

Nicole, I can relate! When I first started writing category romance, I thought I was going to write "short contemporary." Those are books between 50-65,000 words. Uh, huh. I very quickly discovered that I created stories too complicated to fit into that word count. Suddenly I was a "long contemporary" writer. The word count for my line runs 80-85,000 words, and generally I push it over the max a tad. <G>

I have not mastered the art of short story. Can't seem to deal with that. Now, flash fiction, I can do. But not short story. :Shrug:

Susan G.

[Tirjasdyn]

Hi Tirjasdyn! Long time no see, totally my fault, sorry 'bout that...

Ello :) Still writing...but I think novel is burning a whole in my computer.

At least your muse gives you middles, mine gives me beginnings and ends then goes on vacation.

[batgirl]

I haven't written enough to say for myself, yet, but your muse does sound a lot like my co-writer's muse - maybe they went to the same school?
Everything my co-writer starts turns into a full-length novel, and more, spawns linked novels, where secondary characters from one story take over and get their own stages.
The great consolation is that if we ever get this book published, she alone can supply the market for a few years, while I sit back ;)
-Barbara

[Niapri]

Well, at least we're not alone! My muse is a treacherous mercenary who refuses to work if I have other issues going - in the real world, I mean. ^^; But when he's not being stubborn, he's giving me ideas for little short stories to write "for fun". I've learned the hard way to just write down the ideas and force my wonderful little muse to weave in the new ideas with the current WIP. Because otherwise they turn into novels of their own accord, soon to be hidden in the "Take Another Look" folder on my computer.

It helps to have a torture chamber. In which I dangle Oreos in said muse's face. He surrenders to my will within moments. :flag:

[ElbieGrant]

My muse has a tendency to get very tempermental. Not too long ago she kept prodding me to write, even waking me up in the middle of the night. She wasn't letting me get any sleep or even spend time with my family. If I went out to lunch with my mom, she protested thru the entire meal. "We can't be here. We have work to do. No, you can't have a slice of pie, we have to get back to the computer. No refills. Let's go." This went on for 5 days, until I said, "No, I have to eat and I have to sleep. 14 hours in one day is enough." Well, she got mad at me and wouldn't talk to me for two weeks! Needless to say, she and I have a love/hate kind of relationship.

[Nangleator]

...I entered an entry-fee-bearing contest ... and I won the grand prize.
Ouch! How much did that cost you?

My muse, when she's around, can have potato chip syndrome. 'Just one more,' she says. 'Just one more idea for him, then I'll let him go to sleep.' But, dammit, my onion dip tastes too good, and my ridges are just so crispy and potatoey that she just can't help herself.

She's got a monkey on her back, and it's writers.

[NicoleJLeBoeuf]

Ouch! How much did that cost you?$15 fee. I ended up winning $500. I don't, as a rule, enter contests with entry/reading fee. But I had a really good feeling about that one. :)

She's got a monkey on her back, and it's writers.Mine read that and said, "Hey! Great idea! A Muse whose friends arrange an intervention! Huh? Huh?"

I'd tell Her, "That's not the point," but I doubt she'd listen.

[AdamH]

I swear my muse keeps telling me as it sits upon the top of my computer monitor like smoking a stogey and sounding like that old boxing coach with the rough voice from Rocky, "I tells ya kid. This one'll be a short one. Trust me."

Fourty rounds later I'm still slugging away at a novel. Any time it tells me it's a short one, I have no reason not to trust it. Who else am I going to turn to for inspiration? Maybe I've got to find a Mini-Muse who specializes in stories shorter than 5000 words. For better or for worse, I'm glad it's around. I don't know what I'd do without a muse.