I have that wheels are just about to fall off when it comes to my NaNoWriMo planning. I have been trying to plan this thing for a month now, and I don’t really have a solid premise written. I would be happy with a one sentence on, really, telling me what this thing is about. Still, I have enough for four chapters or so, so that should get me almost through week one of NaNoWriMo.
The funny thing is I made some decent progress on the brainstorming this morning while trying to rock my eight-month-old back to sleep at 5:00 AM this morning. For some reason, the little guy wakes up around that time every day, like there is a little baby alarm clock in his head. That time is usually Daddy time, because I like to give my wife the extra minutes of sleep since she needs the energy to herd the kids throughout the day.
Anyhow, as I was rocking him I got some pretty good ideas. I had to keep repeating them in my head so I wouldn’t forget them. When he finally fell asleep at 6:00 AM, I put him down and typed up my thoughts as fast as I could, knowing he would most likely not sleep very long.
So, I’m tired (that’s my usual setting, so not a big deal) and a little bit frustrated. I keep telling myself I’m in better shape planning that I have been in years past. Still, if you are listening Muse, please visit me soon. It’s getting lonely here.
The Struggling Writer 
You’ve done more planning than I ever had. Good for you. I hope your muse comes for a visit soon.
(clears throat) She’s been hangin’ out with me drinking coffee. Um, she said it was okay.
She’s in the car heading back to your place. She should be there pretty soon.
The muses are flying around enjoying their last few days of freedom.
I heard a rumor, from a reliable source, that there was going to be one really big muse party on Halloween.
I allowed my muse to go, but made her promise to show up on Sunday morning. She made me promise to brew lots of hot coffee.
Good luck with NaNoWriMo! I’m sure the ideas will come at the right time… 🙂
What a good daddy!
I rarely come up with plot ideas when I sit and think of them. They’ll come up when I’m writing something else (like, a character will do something random and it just FITS a plot whole later in the story that they can fill). I also like looking through newspapers or HowStuffWorks for articles or random ideas that I can use in different stories. They don’t always fit my current project, but I keep them all in a binder so I can flip through it later for inspiration. And then my favorite, magazine image clippings. Again, I keep those in the inspiration binder (in those old peel away photo album pages that we don’t use anymore), and I pick images I just LIKE and I usually flesh out the details of a story or character that way. But the big stuff . . . big turning points and stuff . . . news stories tend to work better.
Gosh, I have so much left to do!