My blogging schedule is completely out of whack now with new new job. I’m going to have to develop a new ritual of random ramblingness. I wonder if I can take a pill for that?
I’m going to try and make an effort to get back to the am posts, though. Not that I know how concerned anyone is about that, but it’s one of those things I appreciate. I wake up, I read the other blogs, absorb the intellect, and then go make up my own strange but almost logical (to me) thoughts.
So I’ve been thinking about writing (go figure). And I have a question for the writing world. Each and every one of you. I hear a lot of people say they have two, five, ten, twenty novels and ideas. You people are brilliant and overwhelmingly creative. I’ve been able to determine this from your avalanches of thoughts and story concepts.
I’ve had my fair share of ideas in my lifetime. According to my writing folder, I have hundreds of documents. Lots are short stories. Revisions. Ideas that never panned out. When it comes right down to it, I only have one (mostly) solid novel, and a couple more that are close. But I have dozens of unfinished stories that have been reassigned to new plot lines, been dissected and moved. And I have to wonder if any of them will ever go anywhere.
So that’s my question to all of you. When you say things like “I’ve written twenty novels” Or “I have fifty story ideas”, what does that mean to you? I’m looking for a point of reference ^_^
To me, a story idea is difficult to quantify unless you actually do something with it…at least begin writing or sketching out.
“I’ve written twenty novels” seems pretty explicit to me. In my case, it’s five, including three published and two never-to-be published. But I wrote the complete story in each case. I don’t know how many more I’ve started–maybe three or four that languished after 30 pages or so.
A story idea is a little more vague and ephemeral than a novel idea. Often I start what I think is a story, only to discover there is so much more to it that it demands to be a novel.
Novels are bigger, and often tie together many story ideas. I’m just working on finding all the threads for the new book I’m planning for this year’s NaNo. I know they won’t all be there in the first draft, but they’ll get there in the end.
For me: I don’t write short fiction. I can try but in the end they become scenes and not full stories. When I say I have 65 story ideas that means novels. And sometimes a series counts as one idea and other times a series takes up a couple of ideas. I guess I could just call them novel ideas but usually I just call them stories and not even ideas. It can get confusing, since not everyone is the same, I’m sure.
Am I odd for having 65+ novel ideas? hmmm
HMM. I think the more ideas the better. And the more books written the better. You can only GET better. I’ve had a LOT of story ideas, but I haven’t counted them, and I never will. I try to file it away somewhere, and if I really like it, maybe I’ll throw it into a different and unexpected place. I think we work similarly 🙂
I actually only have about 3 ideas for novels. I write poems and short fiction once in a while, but it’s not my forte nor does it really call to me. When one of the ideas keeps speaking to me and rises to the top of my consciousness, then that’s what I work on. I don’t work on more than one novel at a time. I will however, work on a novel and then maybe write a poem or an article for a diversion. If I tried to work on more than one novel at a time, I wouldn’t finish, and eventually, I like to finish!
Sorry I’m late but I was out of town…
Here’s my 2cents:
I started writing long before the internet and I didn’t have anything better to do, so 99% of what I started I also finished. Which means I have over 500 titles under my belt BUT… most of them are crap! 😀
I also have dozens of story ideas I’ll probably never write (especially the ones I jotted down in the 1980s…) but I don’t care…
I’m VERY prolific because I started my routine when there were no distractions! Today a friend asked me “Even with this (first spring) sun you still prefer stay in and write?” Hell, yeah! ^______^
Compulsive Writer Barb