My muse is being evil

Those of you who follow me here — and many thanks for doing so — or on Mad Genius Club know that my latest novel, Nocturnal Interlude (Nocturnal Lives), came out last week as an e-book on Amazon and will soon be available in print. Some of you have been kind enough to buy it and leave reviews and others have promised reviews. A big thanks for that because the reviews do help, especially if you share them on social media or through word of mouth. I’m almost over checking my sales numbers on a much too regular basis. What I’m not over is that mental state of blah that seems to fall on me after finishing a project.

Actually, that’s not quite right. That blah feeling left about a week ago and the need to write once more settled into place. The problem is my muse. The next project I ought to be writing is something I’ll talk more about Tuesday. It’s not the novel I snippeted from Friday. Nor is it the sequel to Interlude. Unfortunately, every time I sit down to write the book I ought to be working on, another book pushes itself to the forefront and wants my attention NOW.

It is as if I am suffering an advanced case of “ooooh, shiny” or popcorn kitten complex. It also doesn’t help that Interlude begs for a sequel to be done quickly. As a result, I have maybe 7k words done on the project I ought to be working on. Of that, maybe 2k will actually be used. Oh, I have most of the book plotted out, including about 15k of plot notes. But actually getting the book down on paper in anything close to readable form, well, that’s not happening yet.

Instead, I have space marines vying for attention against a main character who gives new meaning to the term “skeletons in the closet” (her relatives have a nasty habit of returning home after they die and not leaving. Worse, they want to continue on with their lives even though the rest of the town attended their funerals. Fortunately, the local undertaker doesn’t mind coming by to give them their “treatments” so there are no repeats of the uncle’s nose falling into the soup at Sunday dinner or the aunt’s need to overdo with the lilac water to cover the, er, aroma.Not zombies — at least not the brain eating, mindless kind — and not ghosts but enough to be a pain for the m/c). Shapeshifters are baring their teeth against an attorney, who actually scares me more than they do.

You’d think that with all those characters and plots, and the others I didn’t list, fighting for attention, I could find one that would let me write it. But nooooo. My muse is an evil bitch and right now she’s having a good laugh torturing me. The moment I sit down to write, having finally settled on one project, it goes quiet and another pops in.

Like I said, popcorn kittens. Shiny!

Normally, when this happens, I simply tell my muse to shut up and let me work. I think one of the problems this time is that I’ve been distracted by real life issues. I won’t bore you with them. I’ll simply say there have been more than enough of them and I hope they are the last vestiges of 2013’s year from hell. Since I think I’m seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, that’s the explanation I’m holding onto.

So, this next week I’m going to sit down and force myself to work on the project that needs to be done. I’ll probably work on the sf novel as well since it is basically done. The last third needs major work, but I know what and where so that shouldn’t be too difficult. My goal this year is to put out a novel every two months and short stories when I can force myself to sit down and write them (short fiction isn’t my normal mode of writing so I don’t do them easily). I don’t know if I’ll be able to meet this goal, but I’m going to try.

Anyone else out there fighting their muse or trying to increase their writing output this year?