squeequeg | (no subject)

Today could have really sucked.

I got to work late and missed a meeting because of it. I was damp and cold and having wardrobe difficulties. I'd just gotten over a really lousy cold and still felt a little muffled around the sinuses. I was lugging my gym bag even though I really didn't want to go on account of I'd missed gym time due to the cold and I didn't really want to deal with body issues just now.

Worse, yesterday I'd tried to do some brainstorming for both Yuletide and Book #3. It had failed. Book #3 was, I realized, missing one major element: the central plot. And as for Yuletide, I was so swamped I didn't know where to begin. (Last year, I didn't have much of the "I signed up to write what?" feeling that is apparently a major feature of Yuletide. This year makes up for it.)

So I got to work and glared at the screen for a while. And then had coffee.

Read my recipient's requests again, and a couple of things latched on. Nothing I could put a word to (and still can't, quite), but something shifted at the back of my mind.

Started poking at the brainstorming for Book #3. Made a couple of small notes, then felt another shift at the back of my mind. You know how when you have an idea that isn't yet formed, it seems to take over all your thoughts? It hovered there, like a weight pressing against the backs of my eyes, and I thought almost, almost.

And then I looked up a few things on a total tangent, thinking that I'd at least work out this part of the plot, and --

click.

It's like the tumblers in a lock all coming into alignment, like everything coming into focus, like a crystal into a supersaturated solution. I needed to ~~retool the teleporter, crash the Dave Conspiracy, and buy a bucket of fried chicken~~ reread Ovid's Metamorphoses, check on a couple of nautical references, and retitle the novel.

Obviously it'll seem incredibly stupid halfway through the first draft, but right now it feels right. And if my muse is dancing up and down waving pom-poms, I'm not going to argue with her.

Yuletide's still uncertain, but I've got time, and the canon will show me the way. Or distract me for a while. Whichever.

And then I came home tonight and found that my editor really liked Book #2. Really, really liked it. ALL CAPS liked it.

Oh yeah. It's a good day.