Gak! I have been attacked, sneak attacked at that.
I’ve been pushing on so many things that my life has come to resemble a tornado, touching down on one project just long enough to leave disaster in its wake before bouncing off to find another victim. To counter this, and give me space to do what I need to do…like teach a class starting August 3rd that’ll run for 6 weeks…I declared once I finish Molly, that’s it. I’m not starting another novel (meaning writing, not prep work) until NaNo. This is a blessing because it means I won’t be scrambling to finish a novel before November 1st, especially since after the class, I’m teaching another at Muse Online (remember registration closes on August 1st) and going down to World Fantasy 2009 in San Jose (meaning I won’t even be here for the start of NaNo).
And those are just the big external things. I’m currently critting a novel with another in the queue, I let my Selkie edit fall to the wayside when I got overwhelmed, and I’m supposed to be editing and submitting short stories which means getting and receiving crits…and acting on them.
Do I sound frantic enough? And that’s not even considering my computer work, my kids, my hubby, and plans to go on vacation a lot in the remaining days of summer.
The last thing I needed was an article on self-publishing and the concept of having to explain your life’s story on a first date to cross my plate.
What do these two things have in common? Well, absolutely nothing to any reasonable person. But when have I ever claimed to be reasonable.
Enter Let Me Tell You All About Myself.
The idea crossed my mind early this morning. I wanted to pass it to a friend because it was funny, but she wasn’t around. I figured I’d have forgotten it by the time she got back, and went about my business. Bad move.
That gave the story a hook into my memory because I wanted to tell it to someone. And with that hook, it wiggled its way through the barriers to that swamp I call my idea generator and started shuffling through the mud, stirring up an unholy mess.
No, this isn’t an urban fantasy, science fiction, or even a romance. I can’t even claim this as a crossover mainstream like Coma Wedding. Let Me Tell is a psychological mainstream novel about expectation and delusion. About building up an image that becomes so real that you start to question whether reality can compete. (Okay, I forgot about the article talking about a man whose girlfriend is a body pillow stamped with an anime character, which might have had a slight hand in this mess too.)
The closest genre to something I’ve completed before is a romance, but it’s certainly not conforming to the genre requirements since we only meet her through her self-published autobiography. However, because of that, I’ll need to come up with entries that are sweet, funny, endearing, and positively wonderful (oh and I don’t do funny well :p). But mainly it’s the story of a guy who finds his perfect mate between the covers of a book, and the struggle between wanting to find the reality and fearing it won’t measure up.
And to make matters oh so much better (not :p), because the idea burst in upon me with such weight, it already has an almost complete initial synopsis and a handful of scene suggestions. This makes it worthless as my “work alongside” idea for the August workshop, which is From Ideas to Outline. I still have to find an idea for that…but maybe I shouldn’t look too hard until the 1st has come and gone :p.
I went to World Fantasy in 2007 and started Ghost Songs there. I got an amazing amount done, probably because I stayed at the hotel by myself and didn’t have the distractions of home.
It’ll be okay. But it’s good that I’m not the only one that story ideas ambush. LOL
Hmm, I’m not planning to write at the con. I’m usually too busy and any downtime is sleepy time. On the other hand, the very last day IS the beginning of NaNo. Maybe my friend and I can take turns driving and writing on the way home :D.
And no, ideas ambush me all the time. I don’t necessarily have to write them immediately though, and I had really planned to work on Land Above, for which I have a 70k word SYNOPSIS :p of a trilogy.
This sounds like a good story! 🙂
Thanks. We’ll see how it turns out when I actually write it. Nothing comes out as envisioned, you see.