Ideas can happen anywhere, it seems.
A Day Late, Many Words Short
I’m already running late and it’s only my second blog post. Good times. On Monday, I went back to work after a two week break for the holidays. I had a lot of catch up to do, and that really impacted my writing plans. That said, I had always planned that my 500 words a day goal would elude me for a while, as I continue outlining my story.
While I didn’t do much writing, a lot of thought has gone into my story idea this week. I have to admit that it’s been a bit of a rollercoaster. I started to think that maybe my idea isn’t enough to fill an entire novel. Or, if it was, maybe I wasn’t clever enough to get it there. I was edified, however, by a few things:
In an interview, Stephen King said — I’m paraphrasing — that you know a story idea is a good one if it sticks in your head for along time. As it happens, this idea has been rattling around my head for over a decade. So that’s a plus. Right?
“Your first book will suck” is something that I heard no less than four YouTubers say. While I know that isn’t always the case, it does lower the stakes some. Or maybe it makes me want to prove them wrong.
I actually started to have breakthroughs on the outlining. More on that later.
Old vs. New
There’s no sugar coating it: I’m not doing a great job of making time to write. I have some routines (e.g., the YouTube watching mentioned above) that I need to modify if I want to be successful in my writing goals. This will definitely be something I continue to hone as I settle into the new year. I suspect this will be a recurring theme in these blog posts. If anyone reading this has some suggestions, I am open to feedback.
A Car Ride Epiphany
The two story components I’ve been mulling over, and beating myself up over, are the opening scene, and the inciting incident. I’ve re-summarized a few different version of each. I wasn’t lying in my previous post about being a habitual self-editor.
As it happens, inspiration strikes at the most random of times. While driving to a tattoo appointment, I had (what I consider to be) a great idea for a way to open the novel, while also setting up the theme. There’s even a chance to do some world building. In addition to all of that, the opening scene idea led me to a name for the hero.
I’m one of those people who can’t just fall asleep. I have to unpack my day, do some final analysis, and slowly — too slowly! — wind down. An upside to this otherwise annoying “feature” is sometimes I get random ideas. In fact, a lot of the story ideas in my notepad came to me during that twilight period. This week, however, an idea for the inciting incident came to me instead. It was a lot bigger and more dramatic than what I had been spinning in circles on before.
I’m happy little things are starting to click. I am comfortable embracing the process, including any rocks in the road. Hopefully I can build on this for next week’s goals and maybe, just maybe, do a little better. Progress, not perfection.