An Idea of an Idea

The ideas I actually end up seeing through are the ones that come to me in a flash and leave me quivering with excitement. The ideas that won’t let me sleep until I’ve started them. The ideas that force me from the shower still half covered in soap so that I can begin writing. Those ideas are too powerful to write down for later. They demand immediate attention.  But right now I’m busy… so they’re hiding away in a closet, talking amongst themselves and getting ready to battle it out so that when I’m ready for them, they’ll be there, and the best idea can present itself to me. I’m not actually included in the decision making process.

At least… that’s what I’ve been telling myself, because they’ve been pretty quiet lately.

Right now I only really have a couple of ideas floating around in my head, and one of those is more an idea of an idea rather than an actual idea. I plan on writing the sequels to the book I wrote back last NaNo. For one of those, I actually know what the main story arc will be. As for the third installment, it’s more of a vague idea that the main character’s story won’t be finished in two novels. I suspect as the second book nears completion, I’ll learn what new quest my character must go on.

I’m not worried though. Ideas filter in and out of my head at random, and I’m fairly good at grabbing one and running with it. I’m definitely not worried about running out of material for short stories.

I know there are people who keep notebooks of ideas so that they can pull from them at any time. My brain just doesn’t work like that, though. I need to feel inspired by an idea to write it. There has to be a story I want to tell right at that very moment. If I write it down, chances are I’ll never go back to it, or if I do, I’ll be so caught up in what it could have been originally that I fail to let it grow into what it has the potential to be and end up dissatisfied with anything I write.

Still, sometimes I wonder, after my current series is complete, if I’ll ever be able to find another topic to write about that I can expand to novel length. But hey, I never really thought I’d have enough plot in my last NaNo novel to get me to the end, but I did… and then had enough plot left over for a sequel. I’ve done it before, I can do it again.

I suppose after I finish the last book in my trilogy, if I still can’t think of any ideas I might start to worry, but I’ve got another hundred and fifty thousand words to write and edit before panic will start to set in. Well, I never finished editing the first one, so let’s make that closer to two hundred and fifty thousand.