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I'm wondering if this happens to other people, at times, and what you do with it when it does.
I had written a third of a really long family saga novel, got stuck, and stayed stuck for a lousy four months. Finally, I said, okay, enough, put that on the back burner and work on this other idea I really like. (Yeah, yeah, I hate not finishing projects too, but I was stuck, and I'm not getting any younger. And it's not like I don't have any finished novels; I do.)
Working on the new thing feels good, feels terrific in fact, after that long phase of banging my head against the wall. But this odd thing has happened in that I'm getting all sorts of new ideas for other big projects as well now. I'm getting them as I research the current project. I'm getting them when I do dishes. I had a dream with the best idea, I kid you not, for a TV series (it had charm, comedy, drama, pathos, I could almost see the whole script for the first episode when I woke up), a genre I never even considered playing in.
The dam of the "block" (I'm not sure it's fair to call it that, actually, more like my uncertainty and boredom had overwhelmed my enthusiasm) has burst and ideas are just pouring through me. I'm friggin' Mt. St. Helens. I try to jot them down and promise them I'll get back to them eventually (if I live long enough). But it's a bit distracting. I know the distraction may be the point of it, in fact, a twisted subconscious way I'm keeping myself from writing a new novel. But it's good, too. Some of these are pretty cool ideas I could see pursuing eventually.
I know, believe me, that these are the "problems" to have, posting here on the writer's block page.
I'm curious about others who have had this. (Surely I'm not the only one.) What do you do in such cases? Wave the distractions away? Follow them each for awhile? Do what I'm doing and jot them down but get right back to WIP?
I had written a third of a really long family saga novel, got stuck, and stayed stuck for a lousy four months. Finally, I said, okay, enough, put that on the back burner and work on this other idea I really like. (Yeah, yeah, I hate not finishing projects too, but I was stuck, and I'm not getting any younger. And it's not like I don't have any finished novels; I do.)
Working on the new thing feels good, feels terrific in fact, after that long phase of banging my head against the wall. But this odd thing has happened in that I'm getting all sorts of new ideas for other big projects as well now. I'm getting them as I research the current project. I'm getting them when I do dishes. I had a dream with the best idea, I kid you not, for a TV series (it had charm, comedy, drama, pathos, I could almost see the whole script for the first episode when I woke up), a genre I never even considered playing in.
The dam of the "block" (I'm not sure it's fair to call it that, actually, more like my uncertainty and boredom had overwhelmed my enthusiasm) has burst and ideas are just pouring through me. I'm friggin' Mt. St. Helens. I try to jot them down and promise them I'll get back to them eventually (if I live long enough). But it's a bit distracting. I know the distraction may be the point of it, in fact, a twisted subconscious way I'm keeping myself from writing a new novel. But it's good, too. Some of these are pretty cool ideas I could see pursuing eventually.
I know, believe me, that these are the "problems" to have, posting here on the writer's block page.
I'm curious about others who have had this. (Surely I'm not the only one.) What do you do in such cases? Wave the distractions away? Follow them each for awhile? Do what I'm doing and jot them down but get right back to WIP?