ideas – Selina J. Eckert

Ooo, Shiny! (Or, Managing New Ideas While Writing)

One of the most important things to a writer is simply an idea. A place to spark their next story. An inspiration. A gift from a muse. The shinies we see and chase instinctively in a need to capture and create with them. Ideas are the life, blood, and magic of the writing process; without them, there is no story.

baby-blur-blurry-827991 — I see you over there, you beautiful new story, you.

However, as good and important as ideas are, they can also be dangerous distractions. They can lead us to lost time on our works in progress (WIP) as we daydream about the new idea, create Pinterest boards, write new outlines for new stories, or even start writing new stories themselves.

And what happens to the WIP when that happens? It starts to stagnate. It lies forgotten in the dust, that story that was also once a shiny worth chasing. It slows, and in many cases, it dies on your hard drive.

For years, this was how I operated. I would get a new idea and dive in head first, starting the new story with impatience while allowing the old one to sit half-finished forever. Because of this model (and how I only wrote when inspired… but that’s a story for another day), I never finished anything. In the years between elementary school and college, when I’d started to write my own stories, I finished two. And they were never edited or looked at ever again (they can probably stay out of the light of day, honestly).

But that all changed in the last five years or so. I still get new ideas all the time that want to pull me away from my WIP, but I manage to finish what I’m writing before moving on to the new story. I’ve learned ways that work for me, that keep me productive and motivated and entertained.

How do I manage these distractions and finish what I’m working on? Three simple tricks:

WIP has priority. That’s right. That simple. Set yourself a goal on your WIP, and make sure you complete it before you let yourself do anything with any new ideas. For example, if I get a new idea, I set a daily goal of 1000 words on the old project before I allow myself to work on something unrelated to my WIP. The trick here is you have to keep yourself accountable and disciplined. You have to do the work to get the reward, not just reward yourself for no reason. Writing trackers can be very helpful and motivating for this. I personally use Writeometer on my phone.
And speaking of the reward…
Make the new idea your prize. Use it to motivate yourself to finish your WIP so you can indulge in the new idea. Write your WIP goal for the day, then turn on Pinterest.
Don’t start writing until your WIP is finished. Unless you think you can keep up your enthusiasm for the WIP while starting the “more exciting” story in your head, just avoid beginning the writing at all. Instead, start doing the background research, create your mood boards and inspiration boards, create character sheets and plot outlines. Do whatever prep work you need. Just don’t start writing it. Writing the story is the ultimate prize for finishing your WIP… treat it that way!

So there you have it! It can be very difficult to keep writing a story, especially in the muddy middle or if you’ve been working on it for a while, and especially when a new, shinier idea comes around. But with a few changes in your routine or how you think about the new idea and your WIP, you can still finish your stories and enjoy your new ideas.

What about you? How do you manage your new shinies while writing something else? What suggestions do you have for focusing on your WIP? What methods do or don’t work for you? Tell me in the comments!

From Spark to Story: My Writing Process

One thing I’ve always found interesting is how the development of a story can vary from author to author. Everyone eventually finds techniques and patterns that work for them, helping them to cultivate their initial idea into a finished product. Personally, my process has developed through a great deal of trial and error of different methods until I arrived at the way I approach stories now. Today, I want to share what my process looks like.

The Idea

Yes, the elusive spark to a greater story.

Like many authors, I can’t really tell you where all my ideas come from; a lot of us honestly don’t know. But there are a number of things that can spark those thoughts. For me, my initial ideas have come from things like dreams, other people’s works (books, movies, magazine articles, etc.), things I’ve learned in school or through my own research, or even something as simple as a photograph, as happened with my most recent idea. But that’s all it takes: one simple moment of “that could be an interesting story.”

The Slow Simmer

After I get that idea, it simmers on the burner for a while, building up some flavor. Okay, metaphors aside, after I have an idea, I sit with it and simply think about it. This simmering phase can be anywhere from days to weeks to months long before I’m ready to move on to the next phase. I let the idea build until I know where I want to start.

The Exploration

Once I have an idea and I’ve given it some thought, I pick a fresh, brand-new notebook. I have a separate notebook for every project, one that I love to pick up and open. Sometimes I’ll even match the look of the notebook to the aesthetic I see in my head. And I also keep a small library of blank notebooks for the sudden idea I MUST write down immediately. Those can be unpredictable, and I need to be ready!

Then, the research begins. I start my notebook with research on what exists in our world that relates to the story. To keep with the theme of my most recent idea (which is currently in this phase and the next two phases), this was when I sat down and researched the picture that sparked it all, a photograph in a unique setting. So I looked up information about that setting, its geology, its geography, the earth science behind it, the flora and fauna associated with it. I learned everything I could and let that build on the ideas I already had.

In this phase, I also tend to make a board on Pinterest to help me envision what is to come, the Build. I save pictures for anything that could relate to the story, real or fantasy, any character inspirations, setting inspirations, or aesthetics to help me feel how the world feels, to achieve the emotion I want to achieve, to visualize the things I need to create.

Then I take it further.

The Build

I move past the real and into my own creation. I begin the worldbuilding stage. I get to know what my world looks like from the layout of the country to the ecosystems to the culture. I write down everything I can think of to build the setting for the story. This naturally leads to filling in other details, such as characters. In this stage I complete (or set up a solid foundation for) the setting and the major characters I need to start the story, any details I want to include, what makes it unique. And I fill all this information into my notebook.

Note: sometimes the characters come first. Some of my story sparks are a character, and I build out from there. Every story is different. But the general process remains the same, even if the specific parts change and rotate.

The Simmer, Part II

Then I let the story simmer again. This phase could last anywhere from minutes to weeks to months, depending on how the previous phases went. This is where I need to take the build I created and turn it into a story. What is going on in the world that could create an interesting tale? What are the characters facing? Where is the story in the place I found? With these people I met? I ask myself these questions, write down the possibilities, and let them sit in my brain as more ideas.

The Plotting

After I brainstorm the direction I want to go (which can happen all at once or in stages), I generally sit down and write a basic outline for the story. (Side note: I tried to pants one of my books…write it without an outline or any clear direction…and have decided to never put myself through that again! The editing has been a monster.) This helps me find my story beats, lay out the map for the story, and understand where everything is going before I begin. Sometimes, after that basic outline, I will fill in more detail, such as chapter by chapter, but this doesn’t always happen.

The Writing

Finally, I’m ready to draft. And this is my favorite part! I tell the story.

I typically write in a dedicated word processor. Previously, I used Word, and I tried Scrivener, but it didn’t benefit me much. Now, I do most of my drafting on Google Docs so I can open it anywhere and on any of my devices. I wait to convert to Word until I’m ready to share it. This may change in the future as my circumstances change, but I doubt it would deviate much from this basic setup. I prefer to type my stories directly in manuscript submission formatting.

The Revising

After I complete my first draft, which has historically taken me anywhere from a few months to years to complete (depending on how dedicated I was at the time of the writing, how motivated I was, or my health and life circumstances), I am ready to fix the problems.

First I let it sit for at least a month before touching it again. I want to forget what I wrote so I can look at it with fresh eyes.

Then, I read through the entire thing, changing nothing and keeping minimal notes, just to get a feel for how the story flows, feels, and accomplishes what I want it to accomplish.

Then, I do the first rewrite. A brand new, fresh document, where I write the story over again. I use some of the first draft, but the story typically morphs and changes along the way, so many of the scenes, especially early, also change.

Then comes more of the cycle of revisions, allowing others to read and critique my work, and revising again. This process never really ends, so at some point I say I’m done changing it (until I decide to revise again).

The Sharing

This is the end of my work on it. At this point, either it gets shoved into a word processor deep down on my hard drive or it moves to the next step in publishing. This could be anything from sharing it online, such as with Wattpad, to beginning the query process.

And then it is out of my hands.

Now that I’ve shared my process, I’m curious to know yours. Do you do any of these things the same way? Do you keep a dedicated project notebook or Word file for every new story? Tell me about your process in the comments. Let’s talk writing!

Juggling Multiple Projects

Growing up, I was the kind of girl who was obsessive about stories. I devoured them like they were the juiciest cheeseburgers, and I always craved more. Naturally, that evolved into writing my own stories. But that’s a post for another day!

Instead, today I want to talk about something that has plagued me since my early writing days, all the way back in elementary and middle school. That’s right, I’ve been writing since elementary school.

As a kid, I was filled with ideas. They were in my dreams, they were in the television programs I watched, they were in the other books I read, they were in my life experiences. They collected like raindrops in my brain. They brewed and stewed and percolated.

However, the abundance of ideas that I almost always tended to have at once proved difficult at times. I would start writing something, then get distracted by one of these new shinies. Instead of focusing my mental energy on planning and plotting the work in progress, it shifted to thinking about this new idea. And you know what happened? The work in progress died. I turned all my attention and writing time to the new idea. Oh sure, occasionally I would halfway finish a story. But I never returned to it, never polished or relished or cherished it. I was too focused on the next big idea.

But things changed a few years ago, once I was in the thick of grad school. I started writing fast and finishing things (yes, in grad school. Writing became my escape from the stress and from difficult situations I couldn’t otherwise escape.). I made a decision, either consciously or unconsciously (I really couldn’t tell you if you asked now) to be serious about my writing. To finish ideas. To make them sparkle. And I wrote and completed three manuscript drafts in a year. Yeah, they may never go anywhere. I may be done with them now. Or for now. But I finished things.

However, I still had that same problem of how to juggle multiple ideas at once. I would still get new, captivating concepts while I was drafting. In fact, it’s happening to me right now. But I think I finally figured out a solution. Once again, it comes down to dedication and discipline.

So here’s my new way to juggle projects (and it’s working for me): I am not allowed to touch the new idea until I have added at least 1000 words to the old one. And in setting that one, unbreakable rule for myself, the days that I get to write and really focus on writing, I end up with over 2000 words in a sitting, half of the old manuscript and half of the new manuscript.

So what about you? Do you have this same problem? How do you manage multiple ideas and projects at once? Comment below with your stories and advice!