New Story Idea? Run With It.

I got ambushed by a new story idea during NaNoWriMo. This is hardly a new occurrence, to get sideswiped by something tangential when a writer should be focusing on the manuscript at hand. Usually, you write down a sentence or two on a sticky note, file it away in your notebook, and you might ruminate on it for next year’s NaNoWriMo.

Not this idea.

My main character tugged my sleeve. When I put up a finger, still writing in mid-sentence on the current book, giving her the universal, “Just a moment, dear,” message, she pounced. She slapped me silly, filling me up with her narrative, her character, her struggle, her arc. She needed time–now–and, beyond that, she needed her own genre.

I blinked, turned away from my book, and looked at her–really looked at her.

She had all her bags, packed with ideas and themes. She was ready to show me her statements, her intent, her themes, her raw and unbridled power. She was a revolution in and of herself.

She didn’t even have a name. She still doesn’t. But she has a voice.

Source.

I decided to take some time to write down all the ideas that were bludgeoning me so I could move on with my intended NaNoWriMo novel. At the point where I am drafting this post, I have over 4K done on an outline in under 24 hours.

There would have been a time that I said, “No. I am disciplined. I am going to work on this current book and then I’ll think about thinking about you.”

How many story ideas have I lost that way? How many ideas have run away and not let me chase after them when I didn’t pay attention to their first signal?

I thought she might be a short story–a novella, maybe. But she has shown me that she is at least a 3 part book, each with its own arc, tied together in pain and struggle for her voice to be heard in a world that marginalizes her.

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