A FaceBook Dare and a Live Rough Draft

A moment ago, I got caught up in a conversation on Facebook. Nano is around the corner (in 22 days), and I was looking for something to sort of whet my appetite before November, but I was not expecting to jump up and down to write a book.

But with a Title like "A Life Less ExTraordinary: Diary of a Housewife Turned Space Captain", how can I refuse?

So, in addition to actually writing a novel before I write a novel (or two) in November, I might as well do it live.

Live and with Audience Participation.

So I invite you, gentle reader, to avail yourself of the comments section, because this puppy is coming out fast in the next 22 days. Fast and furious and if you don't like the way it's headed, or you have a strange and crazy idea for it, this is your time to tell me.

10/8/2013-

I don’t know why I even picked up a journal.

I’ve never kept one before. But when I saw the pretty blue butterflies and the holographic flowers on the cover, something just seized me down to my soul and screamed “buy me! Write in me!”

It’s not like anything interesting ever happens in my life. I mean, the most interesting thing today is that I bought a notebook on a whim. Hold onto your socks, everyone. Really hot stuff in here.

I always wanted to keep a journal. I always saw myself as a journal-keeping person. I just never did it. Why not? What was I so afraid of? That I’d have to write “dear diary” in every entry? I didn’t write it on this entry, and the world didn’t end.

I just checked outside and no, the world didn’t end.

I have to go make dinner. I can hear Isabella stomping around the living room. George will be home any minute. He’ll want his dinner before The Walking Dead comes on TV. How he can eat and watch that show is something I’ll never understand. I have to wait until after. I suppose I should check on Juliette, too, and make sure she kept her diaper on. . .

Exciting, right? Real seat-of-my-pants living going on here. . . 

click here for the next entry

Ideas Spring When There's No Time to Write Them.

I know I'm not the only one frustrated by this: You are in the middle of six hundred projects, and suddenly an idea for a new work just pops into your head.

It just happened again to me this morning. But I'm busy. In fact, I'm busy because four other projects popped up just like it, as insistent as this one, and wouldn't shut up until I started them.

But I haven't finished any of them!

Begone! I say.

And then I run after it, screaming, "No, don't begone! Come back! I didn't mean it. I promise to be a good writer. I promise to keep you and coddle you and even start you. But don't leave me!"

Because, of course, the opposite problem is worse: having no projects going on, but also no ideas for any projects.

So I'm asking my readers: What do you do when you have a project that won't leave you alone while you are busy with a prior project?

I was thinking of building a database. In fact, I have one I'm still building (another project) that I'm going to offer for free on this blog, for Outlining a fiction project, tracking submissions, etc. In fact, I have an idea module in this database, but it is more for generating work out of cast-off idea fragments, like, "I want to write a story about a blue person!"

This idea isn't like that. This idea has characters, a plot, and  a whole lot of tantalizing mystery. This one has ex-lovers and the end of the world. I have a old failed Nanowrimo that was about the end of the world, so I might throw this into that, and see if sparks fly.

So, that brings me back: What do you do when you have a story that won't get off your leg?