Since the beginning of December I've been trying to get my Writer to see what I've been trying to show her. She won't listen to me, her Muse for goodness sake, but she'll listen to everyone else's advice on what she should do now Origins Book 1 is completed. She keeps trying to follow all this advice, keeps asking me if each one is what I want when all she has to do is what I'm trying to tell her.

The Main Character is still slightly weak, there isn't enough conflict, I can show her how to make Origins better.

It's that easy.

But nooooo.

She has to go and try to work on Night Run, not think about Origins for 6 weeks. She's doing this because the big names in books tell her to. Well I don't give a cheeseball what Stephen King advises, I am not his Muse and last time I checked Brittany was my Writer, not him. Every writer is different, and while some have aspects of their process that are similar, there is no reason Brittany needs to emulate her favorite authors. She's a great one on her own, she doesn't need to be a copy cat. If she does turn out to do some of the same things as those authors she looks up to, then great, but I refuse to work within the confines of another Muse's workshop guidelines.

What? You thought Muses were all the same? We have many different ways of doing things, just like our Writers, so please don't pigeonhole me, thank you very much.

I wanted her to read through Origins as soon as she'd recovered from NaNoWriMo, but she balked from the prospect. I was expecting that, because it is very daunting to try to edit and revise a 90K+ novel, so I went easy on her. She took advantage of my kindness and started playing with all kinds of hobbies - knitting, painting, cooking, watching tv while doodling with the idea for Night Run.

I don't want to write Night Run yet! It's contemporary fiction, with modern day beliefs, rules, etc. No mythological beings, no magic, just straight up fake in the real world. So why the hell is Brittany trying to get herself completely out of Origins before finishing the work on the first book, let alone the series? It may work for other writers, other muses, but not us. And instead she just keeps banging her head against her books, her keyboard, her notes, her wall and other firm surfaces because I refuse to work on something else when Origins still needs work, especially when it's not even the same genre.

Now I have to get her back into the world we'd created in Origins, get her to finish the revisions and plot out the rest of the series. I think she's up for it now. I think she's given up trying to force me to do things she doesn't want to do either.

I think she's finally ready to go with the flow.