November 1

Once again, it's day 1 of Nanowrimo. I was up bright and early this morning (although not nearly as early as I should have been - apparently when the Pirate woke me at 6:30 this morning, I told him to go away and leave me alone forever) and off to the site of my write-in. Despite doing a little bit of catching up with my bestest ol' bud, it was lovely to sit down and get boatloads of writing done. Very small boatloads (I'm only at about 2200 words for today) but still - I love being in the zone.

And I owe it all to outlining. I know - you're the creative type who just sits down and the Muses dictate to you and you simply channel their wisdom through your fingers. Well, I don't. I have a horrible tendency to know sort of generally what I want my story to be about, and I'll think up amazing beginnings and fabulous endings, but I sit down to write and I get bupkis. My beginning is fabulous, and then it sort of trails off and.....

Especially when I know I'm going to be interrupted, I can depend on my outline to keep my story from getting out of hand and going in all sorts of unintended directions. It means that my original vision stays true all the way to the end. I guess in a way, my outline is my muse. The muse Otolynis, muse of outlining, annotating and indexing. I'll take it.

P.S. I would like to mention that today is the 5th anniversary of my grandmother Lilia Quintana's death, so it's fitting that today is the day to remember her as my first muse and inspiration. It's all for you, Nana. I still miss you.