Writing Surprises

It's fall and yesterday I experienced my first sign of colder days to come. I got sick.
I haven't been sick all summer so of course this stomach flu caught me off guard. I spent the night and today in bed. Since I was too weak to be up and around, I decided to do some research for my NaNoWriMo novel. I thought I had a clear direction of where I wanted the story to go, even started on my main character's background sketch.

And then it happened. I was answering a important question about my character: why does my MC love history so much? And surprise, surprise...my idea totally shifted. I went from writing a novel about an adult historian to a novel about a 12 year old girl.

This is one of the thing about writing. It's full of surprises. I am a bonafide seat of the pants (SOP) writer, so most of my ideas are like lightening strike in a storm. The storm clouds tell me that something is happening in the atmosphere, but I have no idea where the lightening is going to strike.

I've met people who outline their novels down to the last detail (T1). I guess I don't work that way. I just get in the storm and wait.