Yep. The dreaded (but seductive) Slutty New Idea. I've got one, and it's driving me completely, totally batty. So batty, in fact, that I had to put down my tools at work last week and spend 2 hours scribbling it all out in pencil on a series of post-it notes.
I know, it's been ages since I've been here, and you probably think, "She's ignored her blog for so long that she must have gotten a huge amount of editing done in the meantime... a few hours on a Slutty New Idea can't hurt!" Ummm............no? In fact, I haven't edited a single word in the last month thanks to a sniveling little voice in my head telling me that the editing is just too much-- too much of a tangle, too much work, too overwhelming, too difficult. Yet that same little voice is telling me that this lovely little new idea would be sooo easy. I should just quit agonizing over every word of Old WIP, it tells me, and work on New Idea for a while.
Sigh......
I really want to work on the new one because it's fun and it's a good, fully-formed idea, but then I feel guilty, horribly horribly guilty. Oh, my poor Old WIP, bandaged and sitting in the corner, wondering why I don't love it anymore. Oh, my poor readers who have stuck with me and Old WIP over so many incarnations...don't they deserve some resolution? Don't they deserve a complete story with a proper ending after reading my revisions a million times? Hell, don't I deserve a complete story with a proper ending after writing a million revisions?
Sigh...... but Slutty New Idea is just so pretty....
OK. The guilt level has just bested the appeal of the slutty new idea.
I'm gonna go try to change the bandages on Old WIP again. Maybe this time it will quit festering!
13 comments:
This is so funny because I'm in the same place right now. Those new ideas--keep tempting me while old reliable pouts.
Good luck!
Good luck to you to! It is just so weird to be so stuck in one area while the ideas just pour out in another..weird and annoying, lol!
It's all in the balance, Ann. Slutty new ideas can be gold; it's not ALWAYS the best choice to ignore them! BUT. Someday Slutty New Idea will be Tired Old Idea and become just another ms in the drawer, unless you find time for both! You can do it!
Thanks Laini! That's great advice, and I think I'll take it, because S.N.I. is being so very insistent! Maybe I'll give myself a couple hours to work it out a bit before switching back to the old one.
Yay! Gonna go scratch that itch!
Hiya. Just thought I'd say that I love Japanese culture too. I can speak it pretty well-though not fluently-and some of my relatives live in Osaka. On another note, I say go with the slutty new idea, then when you feel ready go back a take a look at you old wip and a lot of errors you didn't see before will start to pop out at you. :)
Sometimes that new idea is just what you need. I say go with it. Then when you get back to your old WIP it will be like getting together with an old friend.
lol, I so know this feeling. Sometimes the SNI is a good thing because it gives your brain a rest from a WIP you're starting to loathe. But other times SNI is only interesting because you're avoiding the hard stuff on another WIP. If you can't get the new idea out of your head, then maybe let yourself sketch out a few scenes, then put them in a slutty new folder for later. :)
wow-that's exactly what happens when I'm knitting... No wonder I hardly ever finish things:)
Listen to Roni--get some of the ideas down and put them in a folder (I totally understand about all the sticky notes--I do it, too). Then you can use getting to work on SNI as a reward for spending Xamount of time editing old WIP. Maybe.
My SNI has often been the impetus for finishing the current draft of whatever I'm pounding away on at the moment. Because my reward for meeting my writing goals is often more writing - on a new project :D
Also, if you need a new instrumental soundtrack, I suggest taking a listen to The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford. Written by Nick Cave and Warren Ellis.
Delicious.
I'm with SouthPaw. Go with the new idea for awhile. But try an experiment. Go to your WIP and revise just one paragraph.
Just one. If you want to more after that, fine. But you have to do only one a day. I bet you will find yourself revising at least a page a day PLUS working on your new idea, Roland
Hang in there! I can relate - I get distracted by plenty of those kinds of ideas every 6 minutes.
I hope you've been writing since then, whether the old WIP or new idea.
Got the S.N.I. all outlined out, with a few of the main scenes written in a first draft, then I switched gears and felt ready to tackle the old WIP again. Of course, it took me until last week to feel excited enough about the old WIP to actually start editing again, but hey, I got there eventually :-)
Thanks for the comment!
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