Independence Day and The Shiny New Idea
My kids have been at sleepaway camp this week. I have missed them fiercely. But I've also enjoyed the quieter days, time with my husband, and unconstrained writing time. I'm so used to the deadline at the end of the school day when pick up time comes around. It was sort of startling and freeing to find that I could keep writing if I wanted to, which I did. It's been a productive week.
Writers always talk about resisting the "shiny new idea," which basically means when you're working on a project and you get deep into the middle and you get sort of bored or blah about it, and a new idea pops into your head, you must resist the temptation to jump ship and dive into that one. If you're on deadline, absolutely yes, you must forge ahead. But I'm not on deadline.
I've been working on a project (we'll call this project A) for a couple of months now and have reached the saggy middle where I'm not entirely sure where I'm going. And the writing has begun to feel a little sluggish. Last week, at my writing group, we were experimenting with creating characters. I created two and wrote a scene around them (We'll call this project B. And then when the kids went off to camp and I had all this time to write, I kept wanting to write their story (B instead of my work-in-progress (A).
As it so happens, I'd written a blog post just a couple of weeks ago at YA Outside the Lines about how to choose which project to work on when more than one is calling your name. Note that this was before project B had ever come up. In that post I said you should go with whichever one has you by the throat. Now at the time, I was assuming one was between projects and trying to decide which story to tell next, not that one was already in the middle of an ongoing project. Nevertheless, it felt like I'd left a little secret message for myself. So when the urge hit to write a little of project B, I figured, what the hell? I have all this extra writing time anyway. It can't hurt to write a little bit of that.
I wrote five pages on project B that morning. And then, miraculously, I suddenly had newfound energy for project A! Somehow, writing on B had gotten me unstuck on A! And then I wrote 5 pages on A. I continued to do that every day this week -- 5 pages or so on each project each day. What a rush!
I'd imagined I would get confused with voices and characters and back story, but none of that seems to be happening. They're all so different from one another that it's easy to keep them separate. I think it might have been rough if I was writing them in different tenses to keep that straight, but I'm not, so there's no problem there. So after one week of writing two books at the same time, I have to say, I'm quite enjoying it. Will it make me crazy eventually? Probably, but come on, who isn't crazy 
I'll be traveling next week and it's not clear yet how much writing time I'll have. I wonder which book I'll end up writing if my time is reduced, or will I switch off? I don't know. But I do know that letting myself get lured in by the shiny new idea was a blessing. It led me to one of my most productive writing weeks ever, got me unstuck on my original project, and gave me the thrill of falling into a brand new world of characters.
There are a whole slew of unwritten guidelines we as authors tend to follow, not getting sucked in by the shiny new idea among them. So I guess what I'm trying to say is sometimes it's worth it to ignore the standard wisdom and follow your own path. (Hey, it's Independence Day weekend after all!) it might take you someplace wonderful and unexpected.
So will I miss all this extra writing time when my kids come home? Yes and no. I'll miss the freedom of being able to stretch my writing time out through the day. But I'll be thrilled to have my kids back. This week has given me such an appreciation for how much I adore them and the fact that this mommy time is a fleeting thing. And I will be so sad when they're off into the world for good and I have all the writing time I could ever want. It's been a nice vacation, but I'm ready to be mommy again!
I won't be posting next week during my travels, but I'll be back on the 15th. Happy Independence Day! Hope you make the most of it 
Posted by Cheryl at 7/1/2011 9:53 AM 
Categories: life; writing, writing craft, life; inspiration; writing
Tags: writing life craft shiny new idea inspiration
Categories: life; writing, writing craft, life; inspiration; writing
Tags: writing life craft shiny new idea inspiration
Great post. I've been following your blog for several months now, and love your thoughts on enjoying the journey of writing.
I completely agree that a brief vacation with a second project can be so liberating. Aside from giving you the rush that comes from pouring words onto the page, it can unlock some of the issues that are burdening the first project. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I've come to the same conclusion as you, and now that I'm over the guilt of deviating from a contracted project, I can't imagine working any other way!
Have a great July 4th!
P.S. I'm a fellow Dukie.
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Thanks for your comment and for following! Glad to hear I'm not alone in jumping between projects. Gotta go with what works, right? Hope you have a happy 4th!
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