"Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go."-E.L. Doctorow
so the idea that inspired my short story "ambrosia" was actually more of a seed to a bigger plant. that's right- a novel.
of all the things i should be doing, starting another novel is NOT one of them.
i'm suffering completely of too-many-ideas syndrome and i have no patience to take the medicine for it.
maybe jumping between ideas is a good thing. keeps me motivated, interested instead of dragging boredom and avoiding my writing by saying i want to give it more space...
i've noticed though that i jump to new ideas when i find a hole in my story that i can't figure out how to fill. there's always a big question that needs to be solved and i can't decide which path i'm going to take because i'm afraid it's not good enough and if i use it, i'll write all this stuff leading up to it and then discover it doesn't work.
it's very agonizing when i get this awesome idea that gets me thinking and i realize i'm going to have to flesh it out major and add subplots and background characters etc. to make it a full novel.
my biggest problem with ayrugal is that i can't figure out Marcela's crime, which is the whole crux of the mystery of the novel. so there's no point in writing more about Adrienne and everyone else, if i don't know what happened then there's no clues to find ....
then the Seventeen fiction contest came along and i got the idea of a girl who tries to poison her family, but they're immortal so nothing happens. I wondered why she would do that and I discovered this desperate, lonely girl who has been the same age for over 100 years and is tired of being immortal. So she goes on this quest to figure out how to get rid of immortality so her corrupt, conmen family will stop what they're doing when they realize they're not invincible.
of course, this is all too much for a 500 word limit story, so I promised myself to hold off on it for a novel. i really really like the idea and i'm motivated to write this.
i just feel bad leaving another project behind to start it.
i guess we'll see how long it takes me to get tired or stuck of ambrosia and then i'll rebound with ayrugal. this is like picking favorites with two children. one way or another, you're going to owe one more time than you can give...
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