Writers get ideas all the time. Put a dozen writers in a room show them an object or give them a line and you will get, easily, two dozen different ideas for stories. It’s exciting when a new idea forms, especially one fully realized and you can’t wait to write it and share the story with the world.
Crazy 8 Press exists because the membership believes our stories are worth sharing. After all, conventional publishing wisdom may not see the commercial prospects to some of our books because they’re following outdated and limited models. The digital realm unleashes the possibilities and we celebrate them here.
This summer, I was all set to devote my free time to completing my first C8 novel, selecting between two semi-completed works. I picked the one furthest along and re-read it only to discover something: the spark was missing. In looking over the story, I saw some flaws, knew some fixes I wanted to make and it was all technical stuff.
What was missing was the spark, the inner flame that drove me to complete the work. While ideas continue to flow and I still enjoy writing fiction, this was not the summer for it. Instead, it seems my attention was constantly being diverted as I hunted for a teaching position and the sustained period of free time I guess I needed for resuming fiction was missing.
I wasn’t idle, of course, helping edit and unleash the third ReDeus anthology and did my writing for ComicMix and Westfield Comics along with an essay for Sequart and an article for Back Issue! As a result, I don’t think it’s what some call Writer’s Block. Instead, it feels more like a change of emphasis from fiction to non-fiction. Short term that’s fine and I look forward to the day I wake up and feel the burning desire to tell a story.
In fact, this morning I woke up and realized this was the third time I dreamed a scenario with recurring characters, set a year apart. A single mother and her toddler daughter in a world where they fly giant birds rather than use cars. The remainder of the details is fuzzy but three times over a few months is significant. There just may be a story brewing in the subconscious and I am curious to see what shape it takes.
Bob, I think you’ve nicely articulated an aspect that people who read but don’t write often don’t understand: that writing a book isn’t like building a house.
I use that specific example for a reason: I once heard someone whose podcast I listen to rebutting Neil Gaimain’s George RR Martin is Not Your Bitch thesis. Neil was defending GRRM’s output of novels (and pursuit of non-Game of Thrones writing), but the podcaster’s argument was basically saying that writing a book is like building a house. You make some plans, you agree to a price, a schedule, you built it, you get paid. We wouldn’t let a housing contractor get away with not hammering drywall by saying that the drywall muse wasn’t there.
My friend (I like to imagine all of the people I listen to as my friends, don’t disabuse me of that) felt that GRRM’s long delays in writing the recent Song of Ice and Fire books to be just ridiculous. But if the muse isn’t there, the muse isn’t there.
A muse isn’t needed for the execution of some things. I’ve never needed one for driving. But I can certainly understand needing the creative spark for writing. Or at least writing something interesting or possessing some value other than satisfying a word count.
Anyway, best regards in enticing the muse back into your imagination, or in re-tuning your perception to your inner creative thoughts, or however you characterize it.
“What was missing was the spark, the inner flame that drove me to complete the work. While ideas continue to flow and I still enjoy writing fiction, this was not the summer for it. Instead, it seems my attention was constantly being diverted as I hunted for a teaching position and the sustained period of free time I guess I needed for resuming fiction was missing.”
Quite understandable. But I would love to read a new novel by you….
Boredom, I’ve found, is the greatest impetus for calling the muse out to play. Mowing lawns, running machinery, long walks or drives – anywhere I can’t stop to write things down- always seems to make my brain overflow. It will come to you soon!