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Story exorcism
Feb. 11th, 2007 07:18 pmThanks to everyone for their suggestions on how to spend the weekend--I would up indulging myself in a few favorite pastimes, including reading a book that was not research related, and watching a movie.
This morning I attempted an exorcism, and I'm waiting to see how successful it will be.
I've had a story idea bouncing around in my head for the past 6 or 7 weeks. Those following along may remember that this is precisely the same period as my most intense efforts on the latest WiP. Plot bunnies know when you don't have time for them, and that's when they attack. I tried ignoring the idea, but it kept creeping up on me, demanding attention. Slowly bits and pieces got added to it as the idea fleshed itself out.
It's not a commercial idea. It's not something I have time to work on. It's a project that would probably appeal to a very small audience. But the idea was there, kicking around, and at odd moments I would find myself thinking about it.
So this morning I sat down at the wordprocessor and banged out a five page (single-spaced) outline for this story. It's beginning/middle/end, each of the key turning points, main characters, motivations, etc. It's a fairly detailed outline. From the outline I could write the entire story, if I ever decided to.
Hopefully now I can file this away in the "some day" stack and it will stop bugging me. This technique has worked in the past... though one of those some day stories eventually became DEVLIN'S LUCK, so you never know.
The question for me is never "Where do you get your ideas?" but "How do you decide which ideas to work on?" At any given moment in time I've got several story ideas banging around in my head. At my current pace, I'm a one book a year writer. Should I quit the day job I could aspire to two, but that's yet to be proven. In the mean time, I have to pick and choose how I spend my writing time, which means that not everyone gets to play. Some ideas are really, really good, but not quite good enough.
"Don't call me, I'll call you."
This morning I attempted an exorcism, and I'm waiting to see how successful it will be.
I've had a story idea bouncing around in my head for the past 6 or 7 weeks. Those following along may remember that this is precisely the same period as my most intense efforts on the latest WiP. Plot bunnies know when you don't have time for them, and that's when they attack. I tried ignoring the idea, but it kept creeping up on me, demanding attention. Slowly bits and pieces got added to it as the idea fleshed itself out.
It's not a commercial idea. It's not something I have time to work on. It's a project that would probably appeal to a very small audience. But the idea was there, kicking around, and at odd moments I would find myself thinking about it.
So this morning I sat down at the wordprocessor and banged out a five page (single-spaced) outline for this story. It's beginning/middle/end, each of the key turning points, main characters, motivations, etc. It's a fairly detailed outline. From the outline I could write the entire story, if I ever decided to.
Hopefully now I can file this away in the "some day" stack and it will stop bugging me. This technique has worked in the past... though one of those some day stories eventually became DEVLIN'S LUCK, so you never know.
The question for me is never "Where do you get your ideas?" but "How do you decide which ideas to work on?" At any given moment in time I've got several story ideas banging around in my head. At my current pace, I'm a one book a year writer. Should I quit the day job I could aspire to two, but that's yet to be proven. In the mean time, I have to pick and choose how I spend my writing time, which means that not everyone gets to play. Some ideas are really, really good, but not quite good enough.
"Don't call me, I'll call you."
