This morning I was over at the funny and insightful blog of Colby Marshall where she talked about an interesting topic.
You should click over to the full post but the gist was that she read an article in People Magazine and began a tangent in her mind that became a funny image her imagination came up with. The reason I’m posting about this is that I think that going on tangents and letting our minds run free help with creating stories. Sitting to think of a story is hard and can become work. When a story just happens, it can be magic.
I believe that this theory of working on a story or plot is a big reason I’m struggling with Mars. The story started with a free-write I had in my journal that didn’t have a story attached. I loved the words so much that I decided to use it as the opening for a new book. Unfortunately the magic stopped there. A second chapter / teaser was written that I liked but I didn’t get much further. Yesterday I decided that Mars needed to be officially put onto ‘Hold’ status. Not that I’ve been working on it recently, but I can’t write more for Mars until I know where I want to go. I even did something I never did, which was outline. I don’t like what the story is and I honestly feel it’s weak.
As of now, I don’t know if I want to write Mars. I may shelve it and work on coming up with some new ideas. I think I may spend 30 minutes to an hour each week night just doing writing excersizes and getting into a groove where I can come up with a new story idea. My drive is dead and my idea well is dry. That has to change.
That’s a toughie. I’ve had that happen a lot with some of my favorite projects. I really liked them to start out with, but there was no story to follow that intial idea. It’s depressing. But I’ve come to realize that if it’s worth writing, if I really cared about it, the story will come back to me on it’s own. It may rotate in and out of my On Hold file a few times before I actually write it, but I will write it. My current work in progress is just that – and idea I wrote years ago, kept trying to rewrite, never quite could, put it away, brought it out, etc…
So after that monologue, my point is that if your Mars story is worth writing, it will work itself out.
Also: I’d be honored if you quoted from my blog 🙂
Thanks for the comment. I think that I will probably come back to Mars at some point or come up with a story idea that I can integrate with the ten pages I already have down.
PS- Thanks for the permission. Look for it on Friday.