I kicked some serious hiney on the novel this week. It was the not-so-fun stuff. Revisions, corrections, switching the order of pages, re-writing certain sections that no longer make sens
e. Holy Cow. Three days of this and my mind is all mushed up. I started creating this novel 8 months ago. I probably have another 6 months of re-rewrites and honestly…probably another year for the graphic elements. This thing is turning into a very long-term deal.
So here’s the issue. I have ideas for two more books brewing in my dang head. What the #$#@!? am I supposed to do? I’ve got a serious book-writing backlog problem. Most of my film projects are short term, 6 months or less, so this is a new problem for me. I am trying to stay focused on the novel at hand. But I’ll be going about my day when I’ll get a super-cool idea for one of the other ones! So, I’m trying to file those away for a future year.By the time this novel is done I fear I may have another 6 stories I want to write. Hmmm, might have to switch to short story format.
I have a friend that wrote his first novel a few years ago and he had the same problem. It took him longer than he wanted because he kept coming up with ideas for other novels. What he did tell me was that after you have gone through the entire process once, it becomes easier and faster for the ones that follow. Hang on to those ideas!
TOTALLY having this problem. It’s the muse. The muse is stingy when you don’t use any of its ideas, but once you start listening to the muse it keeps giving you more. Sometimes if I don’t have a lot of time to write I stop getting new ideas, but then once I get going again, the ideas are flowing in all directions, not only related to the novel. It’s frustrating, but I think writers block is a much worse problem to deal with.
Keep plugging away, good luck!