Well, this is a recurring theme for me, and probably one of the biggest reasons why I'm not a published author today. The two stories I mentioned in a previous post (a full-length novel and a series of novelettes) have mysteriously found their way onto the back-burner and a third project has taken their place. Fortunately, this one seems to be taking the form of a single novelette or novella, with nothing in mind for a sequel or series... well, nothing specific, anyway... which means to me that it probably has a better chance then most of the plots bouncing around my noggin of being one of the fortunate few to become a finished second draft. To this end, I'm doing a couple of things which I don't normally do, perhaps to make the project unique enough that I can delay whatever other ideas pop into my mind long enough to get a first draft out on paper.
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| Behold the eldritch evil and make peace with your god. |
I'm taking a half-step away from my usual fantasy to put down my on take on the modern horror genre. Yes, I missed the latest tide of vampire fiction, and the aftershock of tongue-in-cheek parodies, but I'm vain enough to believe that mine is unique enough not to rely on riding a trend for it to be well received. And anyway, interest in that sort of thing never seems to really face a strong decline.
The other thing I'm up to with this one (and this is actually a first for me) is to write the first draft completely on the fly, with a determination not to write down one single idea, place, plotline, character, or quote until its time has come to appear within the story, itself. I figure I can't get completely sick of a story that I've never seen.
Anyway, maybe that will help me stay focused on this one project before I return to the others. If I come back in two weeks and start talking about a fourth project before finishing or officially abandoning this one, somebody had better slap some sense into me.
So, I ask these things of my multitudinous readership. What's your personal limit for writing stories simultaneously? How often do you toss away your map and compass for a story, and improvise from start to finish?
First, I must say I LOVE the picture in this post. Gave me a good laugh.
ReplyDeleteSecond, I can only work on the book I'm writing at the time. If I get another idea, I take some notes and shove it aside. I don't allow myself to write a single thing from that second book until the first one is done...at least in first draft form. That being said, the first fifty pages of a story are the hardest for me to write. (Just got there *today* in Book3 from my Vampires of Crimson Bay Series.) I write 3-4 chapters and delete them. Start again. Delete again. This cycle goes round three or four times until I know I've really nailed that opening.
What works for one, though, doesn't necessarily work for another. Find what works for you and roll with it.
Good luck!
Kristin
www.kristinmiller.net