The Idea Stampede

Posted on January 28, 2008

Well, it’s a new week, and I’m still forced to hold off on telling you any good news. Everything is too shaky right now. With any luck, the coming weeks will hold good news like a strip club patron clutches a fistful of singles (thus goes the worst simile I’ve ever written).

In the mean time, I’ll tell you about something fun that’s been happening lately. Every now and then, I get a stampede of idea, just a bunch of stories popping in my head at once. I can maybe hear them approaching like a subtle thunder in the distance, but I never have time to fully prepare.

See, I write pretty fast. Not Jim Moore fast, but pretty fast. I do not, however, write fast enough to write each story as it pops in my head. I’ve got to queue them up in my brain and make each wait its turn.

This isn’t as easy as it sounds (does it even sound easy?). There’s a notebook next to my bed full of ideas. There’s a word file on my desktop full of titles and descriptions of upcoming stories (five of which are novels-nevermind that I have to sell the first four, still). I have close to a dozen short stories that currently consist of a first paragraph followed by a few sentences of description. That’s more than a little clutter created in the pursuit of storytelling.

But the ideas keep coming. Sometimes the stampede slows down a little, but it always picks up again. All I can do is type away and hope I get caught up.

Or hope I don’t get caught up. Maybe it’s more fun that way.

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