Which Contains An Unexpected Plot Twist.

Sunday night I fell asleep trying to figure out the history of a couple of minor characters, and when I woke Monday morning, my brain was still working on it. It (i.e, my brain) did other things when I required it to, but anytime its assistance wasn't absolutely essential it kept defaulting back to this side story, trying to work out "...and then what happened? And then what happened?" Eventually I thought I'd better jot down some notes so that I could revisit these characters when I had time for them.

Nothing doing. The "notes" came out as a tide of narrative and dialogue. I couldn't help myself; it just went on and on. I was obsessed, I was infatuated, I floated around in a sparkly cloud of story-fluff. And the words kept coming. Shortly after midnight, when the tide finally went out again, I had over 5500 words of character history, in the form of something vaguely resembling a short story.

The problem is, I can't incorporate any of this into my NaNo novel. It gives too much away. I was painfully aware of this the entire time I was writing -- but I also remembered Annie Dillard's advice never to save ideas for later, to spend it all now, now, because that is how to keep the creative pump primed. And so I can't find it in myself to regret going an entire day without adding to my wordcount. Maybe it will pay off; maybe the novel will flow more easily now that I have a better idea of who I'm writing about, and I'll catch up in no time. Or maybe not...

...but it will still have been worth it.