Too Many Ideas, Too Little Time
I’ve been having a lot of ideas lately. This is, objectively, rather handy for a writer, all things considered. At some point I’m going to need to write something else, and so having a few more short stories in the pipeline – and potentially a whole book for one of them, I think – is definitely a good thing.
The problem is that said ideas are more than a little distracting from the thing I’m actually meant to be doing, which is finishing Boiling Seas 3. Which is proceeding well enough: I’m juggling many different strands of endgame plot and wrapping them into a nice dramatic conclusion. There’s more than enough plot to go around (I’m definitely going to have to cut some of it out…) for this book. But my mind is filled with Interesting New Ideas which I have to fight myself not to include and bloat the story entirely. It’s difficult enough tying everything together without these intrusive ideas coming in.
And that’s just for the book I am writing. The harder wrapping up this trilogy becomes, the more I find my mind wandering to these other ideas. I am tempted by space weathermen, by writing-based magic systems, by the very slowly ongoing write-up of my DnD campaign, and by many more things besides. Some mornings I sit and stare at BS3 for half an hour before I get a single word down, and I spend much of that time thinking about writing other things.
It’s not that I’m not enjoying BS3. When it flows, it really flows, and I’m loving every minute. I’m very attached to the three misfits I’ve thrown together in this narrative and I probably enjoy writing them more than any other set of protagonists I’ve had. This is the conclusion of an awful lot of work and seeing it come together, however slowly, is a delight. But it’s bloody hard work sometimes, and the easier path – the path of writing something else – is always there, twisting away in the corner of my eye.
I am not taking that path. Not properly. Very occasionally I allow myself a day of palate cleansing when the weave of plot threads gets too tight and I just need to step back – but those tempting new ideas are off-limits, because I know how into them I’ll immediately get. This book needs finishing first, and it will be finished.
It’s just a strange state of mind I find myself in. I’m still loving the writing of this story, but sometimes the thought of writing it is awful. It is a complex, many-tentacled beast, and sometimes it feels like I’m fighting against it instead of helping it grow.
Motivation is often a tricky thing to find. But I will find it, for these characters’ sakes. Because some of those new ideas clamouring to be written are for them. I can’t let myself start a future part of their story without finishing this one first.
But it’s tempting. Oh, it’s very tempting. Because it’s a damn good idea.
One thing at a time. Or maybe two, as a treat.
