Inspiration - the enemy?
I sit here, taking a breather after two hours of editing my latest book this morning. I should be pleased with myself, but instead, I’m feeling guilty that I haven’t done more this week.
Why? Have I been watching too many box sets on TV? Was I zoned out in front of an Xbox? Out carousing? Caught up reading other books? Nope. I’ve been researching and plotting a new book idea that just won’t settle down and remain in my subconscious until I need it like a good idea should.
This is in one sense an embarrassment of riches. Having the next idea lined up and ready should be a good thing, right? Except when it stops you completing the edit of a complete draft of a different book, it isn’t. It’s a distraction. So put it out of my mind and focus on the job in hand, right? Should be simple. Except my imagination doesn’t play by common sense rules. When it has an idea it likes, it won’t let go. It creeps in as I drive to work (where it came to me, as it happens.) It’s there in meetings, in conversations with friends and family. Ever present. It wants me to write it.
Except…except that’s exactly how you don’t get things finished. It’s how you rush off a half arsed job to get on to the shiny thing your brain wants to play with, and I don’t want to do that. I want to complete each book until it’s something I (or my agent) feels is good enough to submit to publishers, then start something new.
So I’ve compromised. I’ve ordered books to begin researching ideas and material for the new book and I’ve started a note book to write down plot ideas and characters as they appear, but I’ve insisted I don’t write a single word of it until the editing of the current book is done. And you know, it’s working…sort of. I may spend a little longer writing notes and reading Northumbrian legends (details of this in a later post) than I should, but I am still making progress, and when I edit the book, I remember how I felt when I wrote the first draft. That I do think it’s quite good and worth finishing. Two hours isn’t bad, but I need to do a lot more if I’m going to edit it into publishable quality.
I just need to keep my imagination in a place where it’s fed enough to keep the new idea alive until I’m ready to write it, but not strong enough to take over the work I’ve got to finish before the hard work is done. In fact, I’ve had a long enough break already and there’s still a fight with an evil henchman to polish…… TTFN