I’ve been mentally cheating on my current WIP (Woman in White) with a new book idea.
It’s a pretty fucking awesome idea and it entertains me during work hours. It doesn’t have a name yet, but it’s sexy and exciting and I really just love thinking about it.
I don’t think about WiW, like… WiW just doesn’t seem as fricking awesome as it did when I was cheating with it on Gamer this time last year, and that got me to thinking… Am I like this with all my stories? Once I start writing them they just don’t seem as new and fabulous as they once did. That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy thinking about them or writing them, but… the reality of the story—putting the images into words on the page—is a hell of a lot different from the idea of it.
Now, the idea of a story (for me at least) is always different from the reality of it. Is it better? Is it worse? It’s neither, it’s just different. The thing in my head is a rough cutout, it lacks detail and is very much “more of the same”; my non-writerly imagination just isn’t that creative, you might even call it lazy, it tends to reuse tropes and images.
And yes, I do do this with all of my stories. I don’t know exactly what it is, but… I guess it stops me from stressing out about the one I’m writing? Which clearly doesn’t work, ’cause I still stress out about it. But it does stop me from thinking overmuch about what I’m currently working on, and that’s a plus. The thinking/planning part of my brain is the critical shit, and we all know how good it is at telling a story (not that good, just FYI).
Anyways, I’ve been think about a new story and I’ll be leaving it at just a thought for the time being. I might play around with it, set up an (rough) outline and create a Pinterest board and/or a playlist, keep the ideas rolling while I sort out how and in what form I want to tell it. I might even sneak a shorty or a half-chapter in while I’m at it. You never know, you might see part of it in an upcoming Short Bits (I have no plans for that at this point in time, BTW, this is all theoretical).
Today, I wrote a good chunk of WiW, a scene from the final chapter. It’s handwritten and I (kinda) not looking forward to typing it up, but then, I never do. I’m going to keep with the handwriting until the urge to see how all the disparate pieces fit together hits me. It might take awhile, but I hope it doesn’t.
There are going to be a lot of pieces in this one, a lot of jumping around the timeline as I try to sort out what’s happening. It’s going to be messy.
I like messy, and I don’t like messy. Gamer and Demons & Battleskirts were both messy as I struggled (<–I don’t like using this words in conjunction with my writing. Writing is fun, writing is glorious, it isn’t a struggle. Work’s allowed be a struggle, fun doesn’t get to use the word) to put the plot together.
I think I’m going to face the same hurdle/challenges with WiW, what with the plot and all. I guess my goal will be to find a way to discover the plot without letting my inner bitch get involved. The inner bitch leeches the fun from everything.
I don’t know how I’m going to do that (a reoccurring theme) but I guess that’s the challenge. Coming unstuck from the linear process of the story is going to be the trick, that and finding the places that spark my brain. That’s why I went to the end today, that bit was in my brain, and it seeded a new spark… the ruby pendant S’Ahn wears and then lets fall. I think S’Zhou gave it to her, in fact, I know S’Zhou gave it to her and the letting go… that’s going to be significant, I just have to find out how.
So, my challenge is to find out/discover what’s happening in the story without the bitch getting involved. Tricky, but not impossible.