The Cup Runneth Over (Day 4)

I tend to get a lot of ideas for books. Okay, more like for series of books. I've never managed to write a stand alone book before, and I doubt I'll ever figure out how to do it. The truth is that my ideas tend to be too big for a single book. And I don't mean a little too big. I mean these grand plans that if I tried to shove in to a single book would end up so long that it could be called an epic fantasy. Except it wouldn't be a fantasy.

Anyway, lets just say that my brain doesn't allow me to think in single book terms, and I've learned to deal with it.

The point of this blog, though, isn't about how big of a book I write, but rather how many ideas I have.

See, I bought a notebook last year that I dubbed my 'Shiny New Idea Book' and I started writing all of the ideas I have for novels in it. There are some that are really old, but most are brand new ideas that I've thought of since last November. Today, I counted them.

Fifty. I have fifty ideas for, not just books, but series. And two of those have been from the last few days since nano started! I don't even want to tell you how many came from just before nano as I was planning.

I swear, I come up with more other ideas about books to write while I'm doing nano than any other time of the year. I spend months editing and don't come up with a single thing, but start planning or writing, and suddenly my brain is tossing out story ideas like I have all the time in the world to sit down and write them. Like my brain wants me to just keep writing first drafts all the time and never move on from it.

Of course, I'm not going to do that. First of all, first drafts don't get published. Especially not mine. They're pretty bad. Pandora had almost three quarters of it rewritten in it's first pass of editing, and I know there are parts that I'll want to fix again, because they're still not sitting quite right with me. And I don't even want to talk about all of the typos and spelling mistakes that I manage to get in my first drafts (I'm sure you've seen some of them, I don't tend to edit my blog posts, sorry).

This nano I've also had to put up with the fact that my brain is now tossing out ideas for books that I've written in the past and want to come back to at some point, but have been shelved for now. (Literally...I got a book shelf). I figured out that one of the first novels I've ever written was all wrong. The main character was too young, she should have been married, and her husband should have been the one getting blackmailed, not her father.

Because I have so much time to go and fix it now.

I'm not complaining, I promise. I know so many writers that honestly don't know what to write. They don't have any ideas. The thing is, at this point in my life, I'm not sure that I”ll ever have enough time to write all of the ideas I have.

Maybe I should look at adopting them out.

Do you have lots of ideas piling up waiting for your attention? How many books have you shelved that you want to get back to?

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Daily Word Count: 15,309

Total Word Count: 50,143

My Half Eaten Sandwiches

Ever since I was introduced to the idea of unfinished novels being like half eaten sandwiches, I honestly haven't been able to get the image out of my mind.  Someone wandering around with a sandwich in their hand munching away happily.  Suddenly a new sandwich appears, and they find themselves questioning whether they like the sandwich they're currently eating at all.  It doesn't take too much to convince them to put down that half eaten sandwich, pick up the new one and continue on their way, only to discover a new sandwich.

That is the very definition of me as a writer.  I have a long trail of half eaten sandwiches.  All of them ditched for something that seemed shinier or more interesting.  All of them, I'm sure, having some kind of potential that I just couldn't see.

I can already feel this very thing happening with one of the novels that I'm currently working on.  The Commons is a YA dystopian I wrote during nano.  I loved this book while I was planning it, I loved it while I was writing it, and I loved it after the first draft was done.

So what's the problem?  The same problem that I have every single time I finish a first draft.  I can't seem to get through the editing.

I know you've all heard me bitching about editing before, and I'm sure you'll hear it again (as it is my least favourite part of the writing process) but it is unfortunately what is currently holding me back as a writer.  It's what's keeping me from getting a novel to a draft where I can feasibly send it out to agents/publishers and try to take that step forward into actually becoming an author.

Ironically, I used to think that I could never finish a novel.  As in, writing the first draft.  I spent years beginning stories only to pretend that never happened.  Denying all the while that I did, in fact, have a story in me that I wanted to tell.  It took nano to make me realize that this was something I could, in fact, do.  That writing a novel wasn't just for those favourite authors whose stories I fell in love with.  I could do it too.

Out there somewhere I'm sure there's something that could motivate me just as much for editing, but so far I have yet to find it.  And without motivation, I've found the process of editing tedious and frustrating (just as I'm sure most writers do.  I believe it has something to do with writing being a creative process and editing being analytical.)

What I have to do is just sit down and force myself to do it.  To get the editing over with so that I can hold a completed manuscript in my hand.  To finally look at something I've written and think 'that's it!  I'm done!  It's ready to be seen.'

Which means that all of those sandwiches that keep appearing, shiny and new and looking oh so tasty, are going to have to be put on the back burner.  No matter how exciting they seem, or how much I want to write them, I need to finish, actually completely finish, a novel.  Time to finish one of these sandwiches!

Shiny New Ideas Take 2

Lately I've been getting a lot of Shiny New Ideas coming through.  Thankfully I've got a book specifically devoted to that very thing, but that's not the point. The point is, I don't have time to be working on shiny new ideas.

I'm currently in the middle of planning (soon to be writing) one book, editing another book, and even have a few collaborations in the mix.  Shiny new ideas aren't going to be worked on until, at the very earliest, during the June session of camp nano (something that I wasn't actually planning on doing, but may end up participating in.  Still thinking about it.  I'll need to get a little bit closer to the date before I really know if I can or not.)

So why are they coming to me now?  Why not when I'm in the middle of my editing and welcome the distraction?  (Yeah, yeah, I know.  I shouldn't be welcoming a distraction when I'm editing.  I'm working on it, I swear.  I just...don't like editing...)

An answer was suggested to me yesterday: The reason Shiny New Ideas present themselves when I'm planning or writing is because I'm being creative.  Those gears are already turning while I'm trying to figure out the novel or write the scene, so those new ideas occur to me because I'm open to them already.

Unfortunately this means that, even for that quick second, I'm distracted by this new idea instead of concentrating on the book I need to pay attention to.  Distraction tends to mean that I'm pulled out of the world, and I can sometimes have a hard time getting back into it.  Focusing on the characters that I need to focus on, rather than the tantalizing story that the new voices bring with it.  (Yes, I'm aware how crazy that makes me sound.  You don't need to tell me.  I've come to accept my craziness as a part of who I am.)

If only there was some way to ignore these thoughts while I'm brainstorming, but still be able to remember them when I'm not and have time to get them down.  I wish it worked like that, unfortunately muses and characters seem to work on the same idea: When we start talking, you had better jump, or we're going to shut up for a good long time and leave you annoyed and frustrated.

For now, though, I suppose I'll just have to grin and bear it.  After all, I've been museless before and it just isn't any fun. (is there such a thing as an editing muse?  If so, can someone tell mine that she's/he's been seriously slacking?  They've used all of their vacation time, and they need to get back so I can actually get past the first draft of a book!  Thanks.)  For years I thought that I didn't have a muse at all, so now that she's talking to me, I find myself unwilling to risk angering her enough that she goes on vacation again.

I suppose I should stop ranting now, though.  After all, Shiny New Ideas, even untimely ones, are better than having no ideas at all, which I know that some writers have a problem with.  I just have to learn how to keep my attention focused on one thing for long enough to actually finish it.  At this point I keep starting series, then scrapping it before I even get to the second book, which means that so far my characters haven't gotten an ending.  I'm hoping The Commons is the one that's going to keep my attention for longer.  Finger's crossed!