Eenie Meenie Meinie Mo

I feel sort of like a duck under water today.

I have three stories sitting in front of me that need work - not counting one that I just received some editorial feedback on that could benefit from a good long edit.

I've been bumbling around all day doing a little bit of this and a little bit of that and finally sat down and wrote five pages of one of the paranormals I've been kicking around for so long. This is the one I want to submit to Tor, the one that I have the whole plot worked out and I just don't know how to really begin. It wants to come out sounding chick-lit and that's not the tone of the story at all. I looked over 11 pages I had written some months ago and that's what it was, chick-lit, which has nothing to do with the point I'm trying to make. So I tried a new approach to make the story a little darker, deeper, more philosophical and what is my heroine doing? She's fretting about eating a piece of birthday cake.

What's the deal? Why is it I can write deep, dark proto-synopses and gripping blurbs, but then my characters take over and write a totally different story than the one I had in mind? I feel like I'm completely out of touch with my muse and I'm not sure what to do about it.