Middle Of The Night Ideas

I know this is a common trope, but come on.

This ever happen to you?

The Idea Process

This is pretty much how it works.

Of course, that’s one less idea for me.

Something Shiny

As in, a shiny new WIP. I really didn’t intend for it to happen, but once it popped into my head, I just had to start writing it down. It’s the absolute worst time for it. Not only am I taking a break at the end of the month, there’s another project that I have to edit and a third that I should be editing.

But. I have to give into it. It’s too good not to.

I’ve written horror before, once for a NaNoWriMo project, and then again for that side-blog project I did last year. Both were okay I guess, paranormal in nature, word count below 50K so not even novels. This one however I think will be at least 60K. It’s also not a bit paranormal, but one hundred percent psychological: four kids go to an abandoned house to shoot a movie. Only two come back. And that’s all you get.

I haven’t been able to think up a name that’s good enough for it, so for now, it’s just going to be “The WIP”. It also has, shall we say, unusual POVs. One is first person. The second, the major POV for the book, is third person present (it’s actually narrated by the person doing the first person). And the third is first person past, and a completely different narrator, which means a completely different voice is needed. I haven’t nailed it yet, but after the book is down, I’ll separate out the different narrations and edit-edit-edit until they’re night and day.

So that’s what I’m up to when I should be editing, and it’s sooooo much fun. How’s it going with your projects? What do you think about different POV’s?

PS: I know there were some maybes on my request for guest posts. Is anyone still interested? Please let me know.

Dreaming

In general, my dreams are pretty entertaining (excepting that week where I dreamt I was doing really boring things like cooking and shopping…no idea what that was about). They’ve certainly yielded a lot of potential stories for me, and if I was ever a famous writer being interviewed on television and they asked where I got my ideas, I could answer “From dreams” and it would be true. Although perhaps not exactly the whole truth.

Dreams, or at least, my dreams, are both hectic and scattered, so writing a good story from them wouldn’t be translating exactly what happened because that would just be a big mess. And also a bunch of stuff I’d be embarrassed for people to see.

Saying I get my ideas from dreams undersells the whole process. While a dream inspired me to write COLLAPSE, exactly none of it made it into the final product. Hell, none of it made it into the first draft.

The creative process isn’t just imagining something and making it happen. It requires thought, it requires focus, it requires a bunch of stuff that’s BOOOOORING to the casual observer (and about everyone else, too). But “From dreams” is the easy answer, the one that doesn’t require me to explain every detail about my thought process, some of which even I don’t fully understand.

So now I’m opening the floor to other opinions: How do you (or will you) answer the question “Where do you get your ideas?” Is it even possible?

Dream Weaver

Liz mentioned in one of her “What If” posts the possibility of recording dreams, something scientists are actually working on. They use MRIs to scan people’s minds when they’re asleep and then interpret it to recreate an image they were shown. It’s pretty rough, but you can kind of see what they were shown (it starts at about the 33 second mark). Someday (I’d say a decade at the very least) this could be the next app. Hook some electrodes to your head, plug the other end in your phone, and bam! You’ve got a recording of what went on in your head last night.

Part of me is like, cool! Sometimes I dream of things that I think will make awesome stories but upon waking I can’t remember what made me so fervent about them. But then another part of me remembers some of the crazy, messed up dreams I’ve had (the curse of being imaginative, I’m sure), and I’m a little less eager and a lot more OMMFG no one can see this ever.

Once the initial embarrassment passes (yes, embarrassment over this hypothetical technology sharing my future dreams) and I can start wondering about it again, I can actually start to think of how writers could use a technology like this. Most of my ideas that have turned into full-length manuscripts are nothing like the original dreams that spawned them. Would it even help me to look at a dream record? I’m leaning towards no since it seems my books get better the further away they are from the nonsensical, jumbled dreams whence they came. But still. Those dreams evoke powerful emotions. If I could study them, analyze them, maybe I could translate that better to the page and from there, draw in readers.

It’s an interesting idea. And not much else since this is all speculation on a technology that may never come into existence. It sure makes me wonder, though (anyone else notice I used a lot of parentheses in this one?).

The Idea File

Every writer has one, whether it’s physical or a storage unit in the brain. I have many ideas I look at and love the concept, but realize it isn’t developed enough to become a story. Even when I find the lynchpin, the thing that will make it a novel, it’s not always strong enough to live. There are several ideas I’ve tried only to die on the first chapter, or even the first word, either because I was so in love with it that I thought I could make it work or because it hadn’t been given enough time to “grow” in my brain first.

It’s why I have an idea file, one physical (well, as physical as a file in Word is) and the other mental. The mental one gets more ideas every day, from dreams, me asking myself “What would happen if…?” and just plain random inspirations (that’s a cool picture…I must make a story for it). For a few days after being put in there, the idea is at the front, where I can look at it every time I open the drawer. But it gets pushed back every time. Unless it’s really strong, the kind that jumps up and says “Still here!” every time I open the file, it gets pushed so far back that only random chance brings it up again. And then it just disappears among the neurons in my brain.

Self-destruction is a good thing. Most of my ideas are only good when I’m in that spot after I’ve woken up but before I’ve really escaped sleep. Only the really, really (I hope) good ones even migrate to the physical file.

The physical file isn’t much different from the mental one. It’s got a bunch of scraps, good ones yes, but still scraps. I haven’t found the spark that makes me have to write it down yet, so they’re usually vague, stumbling attempts at making it into a story. And because the delete process isn’t automatic, it’s a lot harder to get rid of these. There’s something there, damn it! Just, sadly, not enough. It isn’t “right”. Yet.

Anyway, that’s my writerly ramblings for the week. The idea file, that sliver of unconsciousness all writers carry around. Thoughts?

Back!

Did you miss me? Of course you did.

Well, I had fun as summer officially wound down. And tooooooonnnns of cake. Especially since my mom’s birthday is five days after mine.

Back to business, I want to thank Andrew and Gwen for taking over my blog last week : ). It was super awesome of you since you both have your own blogs and all that. They really went all out. You might want to take a peek if you haven’t already.

Vacation is done—boo. Although I did get a new idea for a book. Apocalyptic, of course. I’m not one hundred percent on the idea yet, but that’s probably because I don’t have the idea completely fleshed out. If I take some time to think about it, come up with an ending, a theme, and all the main characters, it might actually be an “it”, a book I have. to. Write.

But that’ll have to wait (maybe for NaNoWriMo?). For now, I have to get back to writing and editing and visiting all your blogs. What have you been up to lately? How do you feel about the approaching winter? Or, if you’re in the southern hemisphere, summer? And do you think the world is oversaturated with zombie stories or maybe one more could squeeze in?

What I’ve Learned

Lately, I’ve been thinking of reusing an old idea I had, one from a book I discarded long ago. The book itself isn’t great. The characters aren’t very distinct, there’s no real antagonist, and honestly I have no idea who the audience for it would be. It’s just a great big blah in manuscript form.

But the core idea, which involves time travel, might still work. It would have to become a plot thread in a whole new book though, meaning ninety nine percent of that effort would be discarded. Basically, I’d be back at square one with it.

It’s kind of a daunting prospect. Part of me whines “I already did this once! I shouldn’t have to do it again!” But I know that salvaging any other part of this book is impossible. It’s either a new effort by a (I hope) more experienced writer or it continues to linger on in the limbo of my idea file.

It happens. Some books don’t work, no matter how much you want them to. Heck, some ideas don’t work no matter how much you want them to. I can tell you that I’m not doing it again without a clear, workable plan in mind. Not necessarily plotting (I’m still a confirmed pantser!) but rather the assurance that I won’t make the same mistakes.

Have you ever tried to reboot a new idea? How did it go? Has experienced helped you evaluate your ideas?

The Long and the Short of It

I’m not very good with short stories. I like to read them of course, but for some reason, I’m unable to churn one out. I didn’t start my writing career with short stories, either. For my twelfth grade creative writing class, my short story was twenty pages long. When I wrote my first non-school assigned piece, it was a 140K novel. The few flash fiction pieces for the Writers’ Platform Building Crusade are probably the shortest things I’ve ever written.

Whenever I have an idea, I immediately start thinking how I can work it into a story. I usually have a few characters, the main conflict, and an idea of what the world is like. Then when I start writing, it gets bigger and bigger. I come up with more ideas, more things that happen, more challenges for the characters to face. And pretty soon, I have a novel.

Part of the reason I’m a long-story writer is because I like to spend time with the characters in their world. I’ve never been able to condense their journeys into only a few pages, again, because I like to explore with them. Unfortunately, this isn’t always a good thing. Having the skill to say something in two words instead of twenty is an admirable trait. You can do more, experience more, show more…or just do it in fewer words.

What do you think? Any short story writers out there? I’m curious. Can you discern when an idea is a short story and when it is a long one? Is your process for writing them similar?

Work in Progress

That’s me! Also, it refers to all the ideas I have to write. My ideas seem to come in clusters and I can’t type them down fast enough. I’m not quite sure where to go with some of them, so what do I do? I start writing.

Hey, I’m a pantser. I get my best ideas as I’m writing them.

It’s fun to be at the beginning of a new project. For one thing, there’s no boring line editing. Plus, I love going to sleep at night imagining what I’m going to write the next day. I keep asking myself “What should happen next? What would happen next?” until I fall asleep. And. It’s. Awesome.

Can you tell I’m in a good mood? Another benefit of diving into a MS.

How do you feel when you’re starting something new? Exhilarated? Full of anticipation? How much of the story do you know going in? And how in depth do you outline?

Just curious : )

Creatively Blah

I’m definitely at a creative nadir right now. I have ideas, but don’t have the fire to execute them. Part of this is because I’m taking a break from one project to get some distance. That’s really hard for someone who likes completing things all at once and perfect the first time! But that’s not realistic, so here I am staring at a screen wondering what to do.

It’s given me a chance to go through my old idea file, which is kind of fun. There are things here that make me shake my head in disbelief because yes, I really thought this was a good idea. There are also random fragments that I’m not quite sure what to do with, like characters without a story and plots that I’m sure made sense at the time but right now just look like a bunch of jumbled letters. It's been...interesting.

Plus, I've been busy with a bunch of non-writerly stuff. That's kind of a shame, but I guess there are just times when one has to scour the kitchen with baking soda and lemon in order to get rid of the ants and then haul a roomful of junk to the curb. In case you haven't guessed, I'm also a bit tired.

This blank spot has, however, given me a chance to catch up on some reading, which always fires my mind up. I think by next week, I'll actually be able to sit down at the computer without A) staring at the screen for twenty minutes while I decide what to do; or B) falling asleep. 

A nadir can still be utilized, even if it's in a different way. Smiles, everyone.

When An Idea Strikes

I think I've mentioned that my chief source of ideas is dreams. In particular, the dreams I have after I've woken up very early, tossed and turned for an hour, and then fallen back asleep provide great inspiration (these dreams tend to be of the lucid variety and have a clear story to them). And yes, I had another good one last night : )

I really like this idea although I only had a clear dream of a couple of scenes. It's relative briefness means I don't know much about the plot other than it centers around the murder of a girl. I know who the main character is and thought up a few others while ruminating on the dream, but there's still a lot missing.

Because I am a pantser by nature, I'm not going to let this hold me back. I'm going to start typing and find out what happens as it comes. This book definitely will have a mystery quality to it, but I'm not sure it will be a whodunit, so to speak. No, I'm not going to blurt who did it right away (I'm not even sure!), but a lot of it will be about  how terrible events can haunt you (the bulk of the story will take place ten years after the murder--it's the inciting event, but not necessarily the main plot).

I want to go write it now : ). Like lightning, this idea has struck and it's catching fire. I can't wait to see where it goes.

On Ideas

I got a new idea this morning, this one from a dream. For me, dreams ares not an uncommon place for ideas to come from--I would put it at fifty-fifty--but I still haven't decided whether or not the idea is workable. In that fuzzy place I wake up in, I can think the worst ideas are golden, but come noon I stomp it down into my subconscious because I'm so embarrassed to have thought of it in the first place.

However, this one has survived the noon critical point, so maybe it is. I'm still in the midst of editing another book and don't want to lose momentum, which means it will be around a month before I get around to this new idea. Who knows what I'll think of it by then? And let's not forget the twenty or so other ideas I have rolling around and waiting to come out. When I decide what to write next, it's usually easy. I look into my idea file and see what still interests me, what I just have to get out now. This one...I want to get it out now, but I have doubts about its staying power.

It's a horror story, something I've never written before and am not sure I could execute well. As you may have read, I have been reading horror since I was seven or eight years old. Even younger than that, I started with the Scary Story books (although the pictures were more terrifying than most of the stories), then Steven King, Lovecraft, and anything else I can get my hands on. But writing it...hmm. I've written fantasy, action, violence, suspense, and a few pretty gruesome scenes. But none of that is horror. It can approach horror, but e^-x approaches zero. Go look it up and find where it crosses in.

Still, I'd like to do this. The story is forming in my head, the ending is in mind. Details still need to be created, but they're lurking around somewhere. We'll see.