The voices are getting a little loud in here.

[temporus]

Could someone please explain to my brain, that really, I'm all ready working on a short story.   And that I've all ready got the next several ones ready in the queue to be worked on.   I appreciate my brain's willingness to contribute new ideas, or thoughts on how I might "fix" other stories that require some editing in order to make them ready for submissions.  But, uh....would it really be such a problem for it to actually, I don't know if this is such a novel concept here, work on the damn story I'm editing!

Ahem.

Yes, I know I'm tired, and all that.  Hardly an excuse anymore.   I mean, it's great to have new ideas, and to complete first drafts, and all that jazz.  But if I ever expect to sell anything, I need final drafts.  You know, something an editor might be willing to read.  

Just to give you an idea of what I'm talking about, I've got three in progress first drafts for short stories.   That doesn't include the one I was going to start and submit to the GSHW anthology, but dismissed, knowing that I didn't have time for that story to be finished by the deadline.  That's just a premise and a scribbled three notes.  So in progress, a dragon story, a story about sin, and a story about bowling.  I'm editing a story.  I have another story that I should edit, but had to go on the back burner because I wasn't feeling successful with the changes I wanted to make.  I probably need some more research to make that one work anyways.  (Yeah, that's what I keep telling myself when I keep letting it sit on the back burner.)  I'm also not including the novel that hijacked me a while back, I wrote out the first chapter, then managed to put it into a room and let it start figuring out what it wants to be about.  That doesn't include the one, or two, or three possible stories I came up with for a character/concept that I like.  I'm not sure whether it would be a series, or one story, or just a few unrelated stories that happen to have a similar type to them.   Yes, all this is buzzing around in my head.  All the time.  No I'm not exaggerating.  If you are talking to me, and I have a moment of blank expression on my face, its not that I'm not interested in what you have to say, it's that one of these has jumped into my fore-brain and temporarily wrested control of all my CPU cycles, and I won't be able to respond until the processor has freed up.

As if all that wasn't enough, on the drive home last night, a ghost story snuck up on me, and decided it needed to share its nifty premise with me.  I had to turn off the radio, because I liked the premise enough to want to let it stick around.  I even jotted down some notes  about it (once I was home and no longer driving at *mumble* miles per hour) so that I could think it over in more detail once I have some time.   Truth be told it's actually more of an idea tree, where I could take it in a lot of different directions, a stand alone story, or incorporate it into a series of stories I happen to have wandered into writing, riff on the concept in different fashions and do both.

So yeah, one more floating around the head.  Why not.  The more the merrier right?

Then this morning, my brain decides all that couldn't possibly be enough.  It needs to start contemplating how I can "fix" yet another story of mine.  Um, okay, I don't mind that it comes up with ways to revise a story.  Especially if that revision makes the story marketable.  But, couldn't it wait until I've finished revising my current story?

There are days like this, where I swear I think that my brain is rebelling.  Or perhaps it's trying to tell me that it doesn't like the story I'm working on.   Or it's being lazy.  Maybe it's punishing me for taking a night off, drinking a beer, and watching Who Wants to be a Superhero and Eureka.  But there are nights when I just need it.

Okay, I now return you to your regularly scheduled internet browsing.

Comments

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

You want a tip for cheating the situation? Try combining two or more of the ideas into one. (I believe we've talked about this in chat several weeks ago.) But beware, this might lead into the idea growing out of proportion and demanding you to turn it into a novel.

[temporus.livejournal.com]

There are times when that works and is interesting or appropropriate. But sometimes what happens to me isn't merely: oh here's a story thread. Or a small plot bunny. Sometimes the whole darn thing shows up, knocks on the door and demands my attention.

Not that it invalidates your comment, because it doesn't. And sometimes, I get the image of a character, and that's it. Or just a situation, with no characters. Or just a plot concept with nothing else to go on. Those all tend to swirl around in the mind as well. But those are typically too small for me to call much attention to. Once I have: a premise + a character + setting, to me that counts as a story. (And by premise I mean one of three things: plot, story setup, or the final resolution. Sometimes more than one of those.) At that point I consider something a story idea. It doesn't get to be called a story though, until the first draft, no matter how bad is comlpete.

It's the act of getting the details onto the page that make it a story for me. (Even if those are subject to change during revision process.)

[l-clausewitz.livejournal.com]

Well, I often do the combining trick even with full-fledged ideas that already have all the elements of setting, character, and plot. Much will inevitably be lost in the process, but the benefits from the more solid and more logical plot that results from this combination usually outweighs that loss.

It's not something that'll work for everyone, of course. And as I've said before, you might not want to go this road anyway if you have no interest in seeing your ideas grow out of control and start demanding to be turned into novels.

Maybe we'll get more time to talk about this the next time we meet in chat.