It never ends well....

Maxinquaye · Dec 9, 2009

I woke up at 5 am this morning or so; startled the cats when I croaked groggily 'Heureka!'. I wasn't in a bathtub, however, so I didn't need to run outside forgetting my towel.

I had an IDEA.

So clear, undiluted, strong, pulsing, strobing, dancing; doing a little routine in my mind that was making me slightly nauseous due to its lack of taste and decorum.

I got it all, title, beginning, ending, a bit sogginess-in-the-middle - but what idea doesn't have that - and I got a character.

I scrabbled to get a pot of coffee going, sat down to write furiously, filling page after page in word.

Now I look at it, and it's all crap.

Crap.

*sigh*

I guess I should know by now. Those flashes of "inspiration" never ends well. Ideas should struggle, resist, and you should have to seduce them. Those are the ideas that will last.

dolores haze · Dec 9, 2009

First drafts are often crappy. Are you really sure it's that bad?

Maxinquaye · Dec 9, 2009

dolores haze said:
First drafts are often crappy. Are you really sure it's that bad?

Not even a draft. I'm an outliner. What I produced in such a frenzy was a six page outline.

But before people drop in to tell me to get cracking, stop whining, and be a writer! I'll say in my defence that this is just a little whinge, not a whine.

Lady Ice · Dec 9, 2009

I get that problem too. You kind of have to store away bursts of inspiration like that- there may be something in them.

Bookewyrme · Dec 9, 2009

Right then, stop whinging and get cracking and make that inspiration brilliant! After all, as Jack London apparently said "You can't wait for inspiration, you have to go after it with a club." So, you've got your inspiration, get to clubbing!

Fredster · Dec 9, 2009

Maxinquaye said:
Now I look at it, and it's all crap.

Crap.

*sigh*

Have you considered that maybe all it needs is some lesbian space vampires?

Namatu · Dec 9, 2009

Why is it crap? Maybe is just needs massaging after the rush of inspiration.

Wayne K · Dec 9, 2009

Maybe it's crap. Go write something else. Uncle Jim says we can write crap. The brain is a muscle, I see writing crap as a bad workout.

Move on.

SarahMacManus · Dec 9, 2009

Happens all the time. Put it aside for later. It may seem less crappy in the near future.

Phaeal · Dec 9, 2009

I imagine at least part of your idea emerged in dream. I've had many "dream" inspirations. I find them singularly compelling but also singularly difficult to pin down on the page.

What I do is write down the inspiration as well as I can. Then I put it in the plot bunny hutch to mature and cross-fertilize. This process can take years. I recently wrote two shorts based on dreams, more than a decade after the dreams -- I'd finally come up with the right fictional frameworks for them.

If nothing else, save your outline in a bunny hutch. Visit it every now and then. If it's really yours and really strong, it'll keep growing.

lucidzfl · Dec 9, 2009

If I wasn't allowed to write crap I would be legally obliged not to hold a pen or a pencil.

James D. Macdonald · Dec 9, 2009

Here's your Permission to Write Badly certificate. Print it out. Frame it. Hang it above your desk.

Then write your darned book.

Bad writing can be revised into good writing. What are you going to do with a blank page?

Celia Cyanide · Dec 9, 2009

Yes, you can write bad stuff, but if you don't like the idea anymore, what are you supposed to do?

Maxinquaye · Dec 9, 2009

What I regret the most about the whole thing is that I didn't take the opportunity to pretend I was in the bath at the 'Heureaka'-moment and run out nekkid.

It would have give the neighbours something to talk about for YEARS.

"Fancy a cuppa, luv?"
"Ta. Remember that crazy swede up the road?"
"The one that ran out naked?"
"That's the one. Got a lump or two?"
"Here you go"

Mr Flibble · Dec 9, 2009

Maxinquaye said:
What I regret the most about the whole thing is that I didn't take the opportunity to pretend I was in the bath at the 'Heureaka'-moment and run out nekkid.

It would have give the neighbours something to talk about for YEARS.

"Fancy a cuppa, luv?"
"Ta. Remember that crazy swede up the road?"
"The one that ran out naked?"
"That's the one. Got a lump or two?"
"Here you go"

I'd move next door

Happens to me all the time ( not the running naked part) and as Phael says, pinning it down is a bugger. It takes time to ripen. Let it stew for a bit and come back to it, or join it with a separate idea and see what weird hybrid you get

Lady Ice · Dec 9, 2009

Phaeal said:
I imagine at least part of your idea emerged in dream. I've had many "dream" inspirations. I find them singularly compelling but also singularly difficult to pin down on the page.

Agreed. The thing about dreams is that they can be very intense and compelling, yet you can't work out why they are. Try and analyse your dream- how did you come up with it? You can normally trace your dream to thoughts you had the previous evening/day.

TrickyFiction · Dec 9, 2009

Lady Ice said:
I get that problem too. You kind of have to store away bursts of inspiration like that- there may be something in them.

I say this too. Send it off to outline summer camp. Pick it up in the future when you're free of the new-idea fog and have a better view of the forest. Sometimes, you can isolate what isn't working about it and make repairs, after it's spent some quality time at the back of your mind. (Clearly, I'm going for a way-too-many-unrelated-metaphors award here.)

Maxinquaye · Dec 9, 2009

Fredster said:
Have you considered that maybe all it needs is some lesbian space vampires?

I AM actually considering writing a zombie romance. Honest. I think that could be a lot of fun.

Imagine it!

Sarah ripped her bodice off while in the strong hands of James. Unfortunately her arm came off. James dropped her, turned away angrily, and croaked:

"Where is that damn seamstress?"

"I'm sorry!" Sarah cried. "Little bits of me keep falling off. I shall retreat."

What's holding me back is that all the romance writers on this forum would lynch me when it was published.

Maxinquaye · Dec 9, 2009

Lady Ice said:
Agreed. The thing about dreams is that they can be very intense and compelling, yet you can't work out why they are. Try and analyse your dream- how did you come up with it? You can normally trace your dream to thoughts you had the previous evening/day.

Yes, I know. Let it sit, let it stew. I know this. It's just funny how big a contrast twelve hours can make.

Mara · Dec 9, 2009

My thoughts:

1) I always saw it spelled "Eureka" and misread your version at first. But I think I slightly prefer my version, where you wake up and scream "Hadoken!"

2) I'll bet that at some later point, you'll find a lot of use in that "crap" you wrote down.

3) Lesbian space vampires are good, but lesbian space pirate vampire ninjas are better.

4) I'm going to print out that permission and frame it.

sunandshadow · Dec 9, 2009

One of my dream-inspirations recently did actually feature gay space vampires.

They were in the space navy though, so I guess they were the opposite of pirates. Aside from lacking an ending, which is the flaw of all my inspirations, I thought it would have been a perfectly good idea if I were inclined to write vampires.

Albannach · Dec 9, 2009

James D. Macdonald said:
Here's your Permission to Write Badly certificate. Print it out. Frame it. Hang it above your desk.

Then write your darned book.

Bad writing can be revised into good writing. What are you going to do with a blank page?

Write on it?

*ducks*

Edit: Love the certificate. It's printed and I think I may frame it.

Jamesaritchie · Dec 9, 2009

Maxinquaye said:
Ideas should struggle, resist, and you should have to seduce them. Those are the ideas that will last.

Ideas don't matter, whether they come fast or slow. It's the execution that matters. Crap is in how you write, how you tell the story, not the idea you base it on.

folkchick · Dec 9, 2009

Let intuition guide you, it never fails. And by that I mean, use your intuition to work on the idea instead of rejecting it.

Caitlin Black · Dec 9, 2009

Hey, I have a cop kissing a zombie in my current WIP.

When I think about the idea of the book, I think it's the dumbest thing ever. When I write it down, I think it's actually pretty good. The dumb idea part only comes up briefly, and with luck and a few edits, it won't seem dumb anymore.

I think people have a tendency to think that any idea that is new must be dumb, and that any idea that reminds you of something you've already read must make you a hack.

It might even seem that way while writing it (sometimes) but you'll find your voice, and even if it takes an entire rewrite, you'll still be able to turn an idea you think is dumb (or crap) into something worth reading.

It's like painting a flower. If you just use purple, the flower's going to look a bit off. Throw in some other colours (tone and flavour of the book) and suddenly it looks like a flower. It might not be the flower you initially imagined, but it's better than a purple blob.

(I should be arrested for my analogies...)

It never ends well....

That cheeky buggerer

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That cheeky buggerer

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Imagined half of it.

Village idiot

Lost in mental space.

Whatever I did, I didn't do it.

Back from the dead

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That cheeky buggerer

They've been very bad, Mr Flibble

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That cheeky buggerer

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