My lack of progress in getting anything finished, in terms of writing, has been playing on my mind. To counter this, I took a prompt from Jules Ironside yesterday and wrote what was meant to be a drabble to get me going again. It has turned into the start of another novel.
This can't be a problem only I face. I know for a fact that at least two other people in my writing group wind up fighting back the armies of insistent ideas as they toil away building up the walls of their intended WIPs. Every now and then, an attacking idea gains entry and makes them abandon the WIP for a while, sometimes forever. I am imagining a landscape filled with half-built buildings, falling into decay before they ever had the chance to be completed.
Reading articles about J K Rowling, I know this is something which happens to those who have more than made their mark in the world of writing, as well as those of us who are not much more than a footprint in the sand, so to speak. She has said that she works on more than one project at a time and then one takes over. Rowling, of course, has actually reached the finish line with books.
I am still working on that one!
Today's effort to get going included moving 65 drabbles from one place to another, namely a new file on Scrivener. A number of them look promising. I have time to focus on none of them. I am already working on a WIP, a prequel to the WIP, two or three other novels which are simmering away (and now I am imagining buildings in a stew pot - go me with the mixed metaphors) waiting for their turn and a few short stories that just need a bit of work before I can look for a home for them.
This is not to mention the idea for a new YA series that popped into my head on the train back from the London Book Fair on Tuesday last week.
Wandering around said book fair showed how many books are already out there (I was especially impressed with the booth shaped like a castle, I have to say) and how many people are wheeling and dealing to get their books, or their clients' books, out into the wider world. It would be easy to be overwhelmed.
If I let myself be overwhelmed, though, there is even less chance of getting anything to publication. Besides, I write because it is such an engaging activity and makes me feel more myself than most things in life can manage to do, so worrying over much about publication to the point that it stops me writing is not the right route to take.
The number of people who have told me, repeatedly, to just hurry up and finish writing my WIP already is quite high. I am beginning to suspect that some people want me to write the thing. I want me to write the thing. So what is holding me up, really?
I think, in part, I am finding it hard to finish my WIP because then I have to do something with it. As long as I am working on it, it doesn't really matter if the roof leaks or the layout means having to walk through the bedroom to get from the kitchen to the pantry. As soon as I declare it fit for habitation, I have to face any flaws, or even just the possibility that I have built a shack instead of a palace.
Logically, the notion that the only way to fail is to not get it done does make sense to me. It is a mindset I have put towards other areas of my life recently, and it has (hopefully) worked out there. Fine. I will get some more bricks ordered and start looking at wallpaper. This house is getting built before the end of the year.
