Currently, I’ve 26 solid story ideas in the writing pipeline and sometimes one of the hardest tasks is choosing which story to write next. Some stories are more straightforward than others; however, the ultimate plan is to write all the tales in the pipeline regardless of their complexity.
Some ideas develop slowly, in isolation, or, as an off shoot
from other stories, but some concepts land out of the blue, a case in point is
the story Cherry Pie, a heart-warming tale, which is scheduled for release in late
spring.
The idea manifested in my mind roughly a week ago when I woke at around 2 AM, and from ‘somewhere’ the details crystalised as I made notes on my phone; sleep had to wait as the idea poured in from some ‘other’ dimension.
Cherry Pie involves a character I’ve already written about,
Myrsa Summersby, who is the main protagonist in: A Girl Named Latchford. The
tale itself is very straightforward to write and so it’ll be the final piece of
fiction I compose before I take a hiatus from publishing during summer and
autumn this year.
The point I’m getting at (albeit in a long-winded manner) is
that my creative process doesn’t necessarily involve sitting in a locked room
with a blank piece of paper and not leaving until an idea forms; in my
experience, creative ideas often spawn randomly ‘out of the ether’.
My own (completely unsubstantiated) theory is that maintaining
an open mind without exerting pressure on oneself allows ‘raw’ ideas to ‘arrive’
in the mind without effort. Some ideas will at first appear weak or incomplete
while others appear strong—and it’s up to us storytellers to then exert effort
to develop the idea further.
Roughly 48-hours after Cherry Pie entered my mind, another
idea landed (also arriving during the twilight hours) with the working title ‘Lucid
Blues’ and involves mushrooms; now my pipeline is 27 stories long.
Although getting a good night’s sleep is always enjoyable, I’m eternally grateful when these ideas keep me awake at night; in my opinion it’s better to have an overflowing cup than an empty one.
