In Greek mythology, Zeus created The Muses to celebrate the victory
over the Titans and to forget the evils of the world. I’m sure you already know
that Zeus was a prolific father. According to myth, he laid with the goddess of
memory nine times to create the nine Muses, goddesses of literature, sciences,
and the arts. Two of them are directly related to literature—Melpomene (tragedy)
and Thalia (comedy). Although I claim Thalia as my muse because I’d rather
write humor than tragedy, I can’t ignore Melpomene. A good book must contain
both. Tension and danger need the comic relief.
They say inspiration can come from anywhere. I claim Thalia
and Melpomene visited last week. My work-in-progress, a romantic suspense,
began fifteen years ago. It was the only story I’ve ever written out of
sequence. I’m such a linear writer that I have to start a story at the beginning
and write through to the end. This story was an anomaly. I wrote scenes as I thought of them. Worse, I named the files poorly. Even worse than that, I
saved every variation of the story in separate files on 3.25” floppy disks.
Considering that the story began at least four computers ago, I’m thrilled that
I found it on those disks. Good thing Hubs purchased an external reader for those disks.
As a place-holder, I named the story Katie’s Story then The
Camping Trip. Finally, it became Unpredictable Nature. None was a good
title. For one thing, since my daughter-in-law's name is Katy, I changed the main character to Maggie. (I couldn't write love scenes and not think of my son and his wife. Not going there!) At the time, I thought the focus
of the story was about camping and the outdoors, especially as it related to
Maggie and Drew, the main characters. As I said, that was fifteen years ago.
I’ve been sharing snippets from this story every weekend for
the Weekend Writing Warriors’ blog hop. On four Mondays (including yesterday),
I shared character sketches of the main characters on my blog. Enter the Muses. A new
title. Numbers Never Lie. Why didn’t I think of that sooner?
Inspiration can strike at any time. Being open to inspiration is the trick.
Here’s the blurb for Numbers Never Lie:
A shocking secret brings
danger to Jack Sinclair and his sister Maggie.
As kids, they were the
fearless threesome. As adults, Jack's an accountant; Drew, a lawyer; Maggie, a
teacher and camping troop leader. Returning from a weekend camping trip, Maggie
receives horrifying news. She refuses to believe her brother’s fatal car crash
was an accident. If the police won’t investigate, she’ll do it herself.
Convincing Drew Campbell to help is her only recourse.
Drew Campbell was too busy
to return his best friend’s phone call. Too busy to attend a camping meeting
important to his teen daughter. Too busy to stay in touch with Jack. Logic and
reason indicate Jack’s accident was just that—an accident caused by fatigue and
fog. Prodded by guilt, he’ll help Maggie even if he thinks she’s wrong.
A break-in at Jack’s condo
convinces Maggie she’s right. Then her home is searched. What did Jack leave
behind?
As I edit and revise Numbers Never Lie I feel so much
better about the title. Thank you, Melpomene and Thalia.
Diane Burton combines her love of mystery,
adventure, science fiction, and romance into writing romantic fiction. She
blogs here on the 13th of each month.
21 comments:
I'm guilty of the same thing- renaming stories, saving in various places, finding two copies of one and none of what I'm looking for. I've actually spent time this week searching for a piece of an old story that I swear I wrote, somewhere? Checking flash drives, but alas, so far it is lost. Great post! I enjoyed learning more about Muses :)
Oh Wow, Diane, I've got one story like that...just scenes. I'm normally a linear writer also - 100% SOTP linear writer LOL!
Great post.
Good luck and God's blessings
PamT
Loved your post Diane. Oddly, my Muse likes to begin with a title and then fills me in as to what the heck it's about! I've never been one to be predictable in any sense of the word.
Thanks for sharing your insights on the work of the all-important Muse!
Francesca Q.
At least you didn't have the floppy disks as part of the story, LOL!
I'm also a linear writer, and a semi-pantser, so investing time writing scenes here or there doesn't really help me.
Thank you for sharing some of your process with us, Diane. I'm jealous of your title. And now I'm curious about that story. Way too curious.
All the best, Annette
Those pesky muses! Mine takes long vacations in Bermuda. Numbers Never Lie is a great title and the excerpt is intriguing as well. Best of luck! Have you ever tried Scrivener to organize writing? Some people swear by it though I generally swear AT it. Also, plain old Word can help. I am a very here and there writer--writing scenes and then fitting them together later. By using Quick Styles in word, you can organize everything in one file and reorganize to your heart's content. I'm thinking about doing a workshop on that sometime this year.
Great post, Diane. My muse is more Thalia too, but there's some Melpomene there. Our relationship is a work in progress. When she found out I was pregnant with my second set of twins, she ditched me. Said she didn't change diapers or wipe snotty noses. She finally came back when the youngest two were eleven...and I was sick with a fever. So, yeah. Love/hate relationship. lol.
I hear you, Maureen. Isn't it a pain? I looked (on & off) over a month for those files. Like you, I swore I'd written a certain scene--like the end of the story. Fortunately, I found it all. I think. Good luck on your search.
Pam, I learned my lesson. All I can say is, it was a weird time for me. LOL
Francesca, I'm laughing out loud at your comment. There are days when my Muse tells me what to write. Mostly, she sits back drinking margaritas and laughing at me.
Alina, it sure didn't help me, either. Never do that again.
LOL, Annette. Glad you're curious. I hope to release the book before summer so you can satisfy your curiosity.
Thanks, Sorchia. I tried Scrivener, even took a class. It seems great. And I know a lot of writers who swear by it. When I tried to use it, I seemed to spend so much time trying to figure it out that I went back to good, old Word. Now, I write the whole story in one file. I have side files with characters and notes. But when I spent more time on process than on the story, I gave up. Maybe if I was younger. This old dog is tired of trying to learn new tricks. LOL
LOL, Lea. She ditched you? How could she??? Glad she's back, though. Surely, she could've helped with diapers.
Great post! And I love the title. You're right, titles are so hard sometimes. You have a good one!
This was fun to read about the 3.5 disks! Takes me back!
What a fun journey this story has had! Good job! I too had my first work on disks, but never did retrieve all the files or complete the work again. Maybe some day, right?
Enjoyed your post, and the blurb for your teen-aged novel. Thanks for sharing!
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