I added 1,221 words to The Solitude of the Tentacled Space Monster, which I think is a respectable output for a non-NaNoWriMo day.  The trouble I’m having with things right now is that the narrative is demanding that some of my characters be given more scenes, and I’m perfectly happy to oblige; however, this doesn’t really fit in with the structure I’ve developed for the novel, what with its four different viewpoint characters and a pretty balanced distribution of POV scenes.

In her blog, Ray Solberg wrote about mugging her muse to get some work done, and that made me think about muses in general.  Every now and then I like to ask my writer friends about their muses.  So, if you have a muse, what is your muse like?  Is she like a fairy, all graceful and delicate like a delicate nymph of old, prone to bouts of hyperproductive bouts of inspiration interspersed with bouts of bulimia?  Or something less poetic?

My own muse hasn’t changed.  He’s still a big, smelly troll who lives in the basement, wearing a pair of jeans and a T-shirt that’s way too small so that his belly hangs out, sprawled on the couch in front of the television, munching down Doritos and beer.  He belches a lot.  He farts.  He scratches his butt and picks at his ears.  I don’t know him to have ever brushed his teeth.

He has changed.  Used to be, his T shirts were a rotation of band shirts — Styx, Led Zeppelin, Iron Maiden, and the like.  Now it’s a selection of geek-themed shirts like you’d get at Think Geek, even if he wouldn’t know a SQL query from a keyboard.  When I go into the basement to beg for an idea, he’s as likely to throw a wad of day old pizza at me as he is an actual, usable idea.  He shouts out ideas and thoughts and profanities like Father Jack in Father Ted.  I avoid my muse as much as possible.

His name, by the way, is Berthold.  The "th" is pronounced like a hard "t".  Bertold.  Don’t ask me way.

What’s your muse like, if you have one?