Science fiction, fantasy, mystery and what-not
A new novel concept just stormed my mind. Problem, of course, is that I need to finish the beast I’m working on. Its progress has slowed. The rush of the first draft is like driving somewhere. Some difficulties might be encountered, but overall, it’s just adding up the miles. The real work and the associated tedium begins after that first draft, when I need to seriously address everything and ensure plot points dovetail, characters stay true, and the story is interesting and decently told.
That hard work, though challenging and satisfying, begins to bore my imagination, who feels lost and left out. So story ideas percolate. Sometimes, like this one today, they boil over.
But still, I gotta make a note of this one somewhere where it won’t get lost in the stash of other story ideas I want to pursue, and then make the time to write it.
That’s how it goes.
I encountered a friend last night. “How’s your writing going?” he asked. I’m paraphrasing the conversation.
As I’d been socializing more, I’d created an elevator answer for that question. “Great. Finished writing a series of five books last year, and then I edited and revised them, completing that at the end of the year, wrote a synopsis of the first novel, and compiled a list of agents for submission. Meanwhile, I’ve started writing a new novel.”
“You’re already writing another book? Don’t you need to take a break?”
“No. Writing is a pleasure. I didn’t need a break. Starting a new novel is always energizing.”
“How do you come up with ideas?”
“There are always ideas. Ideas come on from watching animals, the weather, people’s voices, expressions, and stories, newspaper articles, new inventions, dreams, reading, watching television, movies, music. Deciding which one to pursue is the challenge.”
“How do you decide?”
“It’s really about which one catches the wind and takes off. I don’t make a conscious decision about what to work on so much as I start writing. Then it comes out.”
Thinking about that today as I finish my day of writing like crazy, I reflect on all the story, novel, play, and musical ideas locked up in my mind, wondering which will ever be realized. I think if I physically could, I’d be writing twenty-four hours a day to satisfy my imagination and muses, and that still might not be enough.
Ironically, I dislike socializing. Socializing is an energy thief. It requires that I carve time out, set it aside, and focus on being polite, friendly, and speaking with others. All that is exhausting. Yet, inconveniently, socializing stimulates my writing ideas. Listening to people, watching them, and breaking out of my routines fire new ideas. There’s always a catch, isn’t there?
Now, sadly, time to stop once again. Bummer.
Ever read a news article that excites your writey senses and muses, a feeling that, “OMG, there’s a book that I want to write!”
That’s the writey sense, that internal mass that stays on alert to concepts, characters, settings, and ideas, looking for the next story or novel.
Just happened to me. I read a news article about a man who killed himself during a traffic stop. The police found a woman’s body in the trunk. I immediately flashed onto a title, “The Woman in the Trunk”. My inner writers and muses began marshaling scenes, including opening lines. I could feel the writing energy developing.
Despite the excitement (and the anxiety, what if I’m blowing off a great novel?), I had to tell them, sorry, not today. We’re doing other things, such as editing novels that are already in progress.
They weren’t happy.
Michael Seidel, writer 