I was in the bathroom at work, when
suddenly a rather ordinary thought began to cascade into a string of
increasingly interesting ideas, and suddenly I had a premise for a cosy
mystery. Just out of the blue. I am focused on historical romance right now,
have written contemporary in the past, and have never given mysteries a second
thought - except that I read the blogs of some authors like Elizabeth Spann Craig, and as a tween I loved Nancy Drew. But I LOVE this idea
and my excited writer's brain can't wait to think more about it, to start fleshing
out characters and detailing plots.
Of
course it does. It's no coincidence that this happens when I've told my brain
it must sort out my WIP at all costs. Instead of grappling with the hard work,
my brain just wants to play, to get back to the juicy stuff of planning and early
drafting. Telling it that there's more fun to come with my WIP once we get over
this hump in the draft is, apparently, not enough bait. It must distract
me and tease me with the possibility of something new and exciting that might
be THE BEST THING I'VE EVER DONE AND SURE TO GET PUBLISHED.
This
disease, SNII, always strikes right at the moment when you can little afford to
be distracted - right? (or is it just me) The temptation is so great to stop
persevering through the hard yards of getting a draft done, and to enjoy
playing. So I do what I always do - take notes, save them in my writing file,
and wait for the excitement of the moment to wear off so I can concentrate
again. My current WIP was one of those SNIs a couple of years ago, and I did
dip into it every now and again (usually late at night when my brain was tired
of the WIP-du-jour) before pursuing it earnestly for NaNoWriMo.
It's
at times like this when I think: "I must be a writer". Surely only a
writer's mind behaves this way. This time around I'm finding it really amusing
that this genre flowed so organically from my mind. I find myself wanting to
Google the title I came up with, to see if someone else has had the exact same
brain wave before me - but that would just ruin the joy of these few
minutes, and I can do that later. It reminds me of the time I thought of a book
with magical elements which is also yet to be written - tremendous fun, but
will take a lot of serious work when it actually comes to be written.
It
does make me worry about defining a genre for myself if I do actually cross the
hurdle of publication, but only a little. The right book will get me there -
and I wonder what it will be?
I do this all the time. Once in the middle of a romance, I got hit, and then took the SNI and wrote the whole thing before I even finished the romance.
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's a writer's mind thing.
I've forced myself to finish one manuscript at a time. My mind is always living new plots for future books. I think a writer's mind never stops plotting.
ReplyDeleteI definitely suffer from SNII! I just make sure to write down all the stuff for my new idea, but force myself to work through my current WIP before tackling a new one =)
ReplyDeleteIt sounds like a common disease! Isn't it funny how excited you can get about a new idea? Thanks for weighing in guys.
ReplyDeleteI have this chronic condition - in my case I think it's because I hit a roadblock in my WIP, and this is my brain's sneaky way of trying to get me to abandon it for something that looks so much shinier!
ReplyDeleteAnd there's an award for you over at my blog!