When An Idea Intrudes

When An Idea Intrudes

10/15/2011 9:27:54 AM

 
Putting together the pieces for the collection of short stories is my first priority, and I am almost ready. However, a new idea for a story popped up that I could not set aside. Normally I would jot down the key ideas and the bare bones framework for the story so that I wouldn't lose the creative spark that got the idea started.  This particular story had much stronger legs than most sparks provide, and I ended up spending quite a bit of time laying out the meat in the story.

I recall reading that Isaac Asimov typically had several stories in the works at any given time. In a time before home computers, he set up several typewriters, one for each story he was working on, so that he could work on whichever piece he wanted to, moving from typewriter to typewriter. Now, with a computer, that becomes almost too easy, and I find that I have a lot more than a "few" projects in work. The challenge is in prioritizing the work and ensuring that sufficient progress is being made on the right things.

That's why this post is a short one. I also want this story to marinate before I get back to it. Sometimes what looked interesting when I wrote it doesn't live up to that interest on a later read. The working title is "Belefonte's Bug Begone Service."

I have to admit that I've already broken my own rule. I'm writing another story called "The Hallway." This is one of those stories that I could never get right. There are currently five versions of it and I'm now working on the sixth. It has started to come together, which is good, but it also doesn't want to end. Every time I think I'm getting there, the story takes a new turn. Stories have a way of doing that.