It never fails. As soon as I am hip deep in chaos, the muse decides it’s a great time to dump plot bunnies on me, en mass.

Right now my day job is still in chaos. I’m trying to learn a new job discipline in a very busy team where I’m supposed to solve all the problems of multiple years overnight. Plus I have to take several days away from the office to work at home because my youngest son’s daycare is closed. Not the best combination in the world.

I’m really late on one story and actively hiding from my editor. I have a 20k non-fiction chapter to turn in asap. I have several other stories waiting in line for attention. I have the Friday Flash. I have a special edition of shorts for the Fiction with Friction blog for Labor Day.

I have my own edits of Giving Thanks to do, which causes me to hide from another editor (I’m not really here, Nik).

I have editing, though my gracious EIC’s have let me cut back on it considerably.

I now have a cat in the vet hospital to worry about. He’s got a pancreatic infection and we’re praying he responds really well to the antibiotics he’s been on since last Thursday. If he does, he might be able to come home to a long regime of antibotics and a hope of recovery. It’s FAR better than the fears of cancer, lymphoma or such that had been near the top of the list.

Oh and I’m already fretting over Soldier Son who hasn’t even left the country yet. I’ll probably be completely freaked out when he actually gets deployed. Friends are going to have to take turns talking me down from emotional cliff.

I’ve started a weight loss and exercise effort.

And now what happens? The muse starts to dump story ideas on me. World building ideas. Character concepts. I seem to be walking around in a be-mused daze part of the time.

I was sitting today, impatient with the ideas I kept having to jot down, and realized that this is actually TYPICAL for me. My imagination seems to do its best work when I’m overwhelmed or way too busy. I’m starting to wonder if it’s a conspiracy or something. Maybe I’m exceptionally masochistic?

When do you get the most ideas? Is your muse as mean to you as mine is to me?