What if the ideas run out?

As a writer, one of my biggest fears is that one day I'll stop having great ideas, that the well will be dry, and I'll have no more great stories. This is especially scary because I've just now started to get better at putting a good story together. What if there are no more ideas to put into stories?

When I started my first novel, New Year's Revolution, in 2010, I expected it to be a fluke, and at the time I was totally fine with that. I just wanted to get Ella's story written. Eventually, the idea for City of Secrets came to me, and Pieces soon followed. These three stories have been keeping me pretty busy, so I haven't had time to worry about the idea well going dry. During that time, a number of other ideas have floated in and out of my brain, but none of them have given me that warm-fuzzy "this is it" feeling. Now, Pieces is almost finished and I'm not entirely sure what I'll be doing with the other two, which means it might be time to start thinking about a new project.

Guess when is a great time to start thinking about new projects? That's right, Fall is a great time for that, because NaNoWriMo is right around the corner. I had a brand new idea recently, but it's still just a tiny seed. I'm starting to worry that I don't know how to turn those little seeds into great stories. If I were a plotter, this would be fine. I'd know what to do. But I'm not a plotter. "The stuff" has to come to me naturally. Or at least, that's how it's worked in the past. But what if that magic won't happen anymore? What if I have to sit down and force it out?

What if I have to learn to plot?

Yeah. It's horrifying. 

Bright side: I wrote down a few more brainstorms tonight, so I think I might be able to do something with this idea. 

It'll be a romance. Say what?

I'm having a hard time believing it myself. 

If I'm lucky, I may even have enough of an idea formed to be able to write a crappy draft during November. I really like the idea of "beginning a 1st draft in November for NaNoWriMo" tradition. It worked great for 2015, when I wrote the 1st draft of Pieces. In 2016, I just started the 2nd draft of Pieces and started to write a lot, so it doesn't quite count as a second year of NaNo. 

While I'm excited about the idea, I'm wondering if this will always be my fear. Maybe it's a writer thing? If we run out of ideas, what do we have left?

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Where to go?

Hello loyal readers whom I've neglected! I've missed all 3 or 4 of you!

Where have I been? I'm so glad you asked. I've been writing non-stop on Pieces, my literary mystery, or possibly my mystery. With light paranormal elements. Yes, I'm still having genre woes.

Something magical happened in the middle of the second draft of Pieces: I leveled up. My writing has reached a new level of maturity. This is wonderful, but it has its drawbacks. More on the drawbacks later.

I've finished the 2nd draft and am already plowing through the 3rd draft, which is mostly revising and editing rather than rewriting, which is awesome. It's also a lot of deleting, because I still have a problem with too many words. More on that in another post.

So, those drawbacks I mentioned. I'm no longer feeling my older novels. You know, that vampire novel I started 7 years ago? Yeah, that one. My first born child. I love it, but I'm not sure I can get back into writing it. All those bad drafts are burned into my brain. It's hard to explain, but I know a lot of writers eventually wind up putting their first books away. I didn't want this to happen, but I'm just not feeling it anymore.

My other problem? I'm not sure what to do with my second novel, City of Secrets, which I began releasing chapter by chapter. It's still here on my blog, but I'm not sure what I want to do with it anymore. The serial site didn't work out the way I'd hoped. I'm not against continuing to release it on my blog, I'm just not sure anymore.

What am I sure of?

Finishing Pieces. I plan to have that done by the end of the year. By "done" I mean ready to query. It's happening.

I'm also sure of this other brand spanking new idea that's brewing in my mind. I know, I know. Should I start a new novel when I have two old ones kicking around? Maybe not, but I think the new one could get written faster and better than those older ones. I've evolved, and my stories have evolved with me.

These are the hard problems writers have. Letting a baby go is scary, but moving on to bigger and better stories is wonderful.

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It's starting to get like the DMV up here...only much more awesome

Way, way more awesome.

Where is up here, you ask? Well, that would be the inside of my brain, of course. Beckyland. The place where ideas and daydreams are born. It's the place where my characters live while they are awaiting for me to finish their stories. . . . hmm . . . does that mean it's like purgatory? And if it is, what does that say about what happens to the characters when their story is finished? On no! They're not dead after that, are they?

No . . . wait . . . it's the opposite of purgatory. It's the before. It's like the womb. So, when their story is finished, they've been born, and they are out in the world.

Phew. That was scary.

Okay, none of that was actually the point of this post. The point is that my brain is getting to be like the DMV (only much cleaner, prettier--lots of purple--,more things to do while waiting, etc.). A while ago I wrote a post about how I was afraid that my first novel was just a fluke and I'd never have another story idea, but then suddenly the ideas started coming. Last night at 2:00 AM (almost on the nose; it's the magic time), another novel idea came to me. Thankfully, it's a standalone. The idea I had a few months ago was for a trilogy (or maybe a longer series, that has yet to be determined). And this new idea is for a romance novel, which is really weird because I don't do romance as the main genre, but I'm going to write it, because it's a good idea.

Where does the DMV thing come in? Well, while I'm no longer opposed to working on multiple projects, I am not going to start any new projects until at least one of the three I am currently working on is finished. And by that I mean, I am going to try very hard not to start a new project until at least one of the three I'm currently working on is finished. So that means these new ideas have to take a number. Right now, since I'm new to this publishing thing and don't have a lot of money, I just have one of those cheap little machines where the ideas pull a paper number out and a new slip moves forward. In the future, I'd like to upgrade to a fancy computer system where the ideas will see a touch screen and they can type in what kind of idea they are: what genre, memoir, stand-alone, series, novella, short story, etc. That way, they may get a different place in line depending on what kind of attention they need. But that may not need to happen until the ideas start getting backed up into the two-digits.

I don't know how some writers churn out twenty or thirty books. I suppose you get faster over time, but I'm still waiting for that to happen. At least I know the idea train is functioning.

Psst . . . Have you checked out Chapter 1 of my serial, City of Secrets, yet? You totally should:

https://www.jukepop.com/home/read/9558?chapter=1