help..someone...please....

[kingaling]

Alright. I'm not sure how many people this happens to. But I know that I'm one of them.....it's like this. I've always wanted to be a writer, and given that I've had much of my life as an only child to day dream..and much of my teens and now my early adult hood in doing that as well, I'm not too surprised that I come up with new ideas for story's..all. the. time.

This is both a gift and a curse.

Let me shed a little more light on my situation.

I have 22 separate story lines, none related to eachother or the same story arc or anything. They are completely separate from one another in both time/place/powers etc.

and of those 22 there is a 10 part saga that I'm working out and just started the rough draft of one of the first 3 books. the problem is, everytime I go to write or concentrate on just that one book. lo and behold..my mind soaks in some new ideas and I'm off on another story.

It's like a Muse of writing and unique ideas has taken my brain for it's apartment.


I just want to know if anyone else has this same problem, and if so how do you get to concentrate on one at a time?

thank you.

[eviladam]

Oh yeah I know exactlly where you're coming from. I have some where in the neighborhood of 20 storys in various states laying around. Most of them are only a few pages in. It all ways starts the same way, I'll get an idea that will fester in my head and build and build untill it's become it's own basis for a story, and then I can't get any peace untill I put some of it down on paper.

Sadlly I don't have any thing helpful for focussing on just one. Let me know if you find a way.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Sheer, unmitigated, force of will.

Aided by bribing myself to stick to one project and being unmerciful with myself if I slip.

[trboturtle]

Between fanfics, stories I plan to submit, and original submissions, I have about a dozen or so stories that I need to finish. I tend to concentrate on a story for a while, leave it, then come back to it later (maybe), or go off on a tangent. It's enough to drive me up the wall!

Annoying, isn't it? 

Craig

[eviladam]

Yeah it definentlly is annoying. I hate when I do that.

Like I have a zombie story laying around that every so often I become obsessed with for like a week and nothing else gets worked on.

[Claire]

Attack of the Plot Bunnies. 


All I'm sayin. 

[Gnome]

You and me have alot in common my friend. 

Sometimes i can just be sitting there doing nothing and i find myself creating 10 fantasy worlds at the same time.  Its enough to make me wanna go camatose when i try and write.  So heres what i do, even tho i doubt it will work for you.  I snap my fingers, alot.  Hear me out on this.  Ever since i was a kid i could snap every finger on my right hand, so i make a little beat with my fingers, interpose another beat in my head and lo and behold im creating musiQ....atleast in my head.  It probably just sounds like random finger snapping to anyone else but to me its musiQ. Annoys the hell out of friends, aquaintances, and random people on the street.  But helps me focus.
It takes me forever to write, because i gotta take breaks to re order my thoughts, but hey its beats a coma..right? 

The Gnome

[PrimaKrieger]

I have this problem too, it's really annoying.

I have plot bunny attacks all the time, it happens a lot when I'm reading books or fanfics, sometimes it happens when I'm watching TV or writing a story. I really don't have any advice to offer but to say stick with one thing. Write down the plot bunnies as they come to you and then stick with the one that you're working on. That's what I'm doing, I'm trying to stick with one thing until I'm done with it. . . right now it's an SW fanfic and after I'm done with it I'm gonna get back to my writing my fantasy novel. . . if I can just stay disciplined and write it.

Krieger.

[eviladam]

I read that wrong. I thought you said you had to plot out bunny attacks. lmao

I've been bitten by that skittles singing plot whore of a rabit myself tonight. I just had an idea for another sci fi novel, that I'm forcing myself not to work on. Presentlly I'm trying to plot two different urban fantasy novels with ideas for SOOOOO many more.

[CynDe]

I force myself to finish at least a preliminary outline of each story as it falls into my head. With outlines, I can build several stories at once, and switch when a story becomes uncooperative.

Did that make sense? Basically, I try to pin the stories on paper as soon as they come, rather than let them rattle around in my brain, clamoring for attention.

[kingaling]

When things do come to me, new things, while I'm working on the one that I REALLY want to focus on. I do go and write down the basic plot points, add a couple lines of dialogue. but by the time I've done that I lose interest in the main thing i'm writing so I tend to wait and not do anything.

[blgarver]

Yep, I'm in the Plot Bunny club also. 

And for most of my life I would let the bastards win, and start writing the new idea.  Well, needless to say I'm 25 and only have 1 short story finished, and am approaching the completion of my first novel. 

I have several ideas, maybe 10 or so, that I want to get to, and they're itching at me all the time to get out of my head.  But I think I've got a handle on it.

It's mostly just telling those ideas that I'm not ignoring them, I'm just giving them time to mature.  That seems to work for a while, appeases them and keeps them quiet while I work on the current project. 

Plus, I just keep the goal in mind of completing something.  I'm anticipating what it's going to feel like when I finish this first novel.  That's what's motivating me right now.  But it took me a long time to finally throw off my gloves and say "All right, that's it novel, you and me, right now, it's on."  I think when I did that, and the other stories saw the determination in my eyes, they kind of toned down and waited their turn.

[the neurovore of Zur-En-Aargh]

Plus, I just keep the goal in mind of completing something.  I'm anticipating what it's going to feel like when I finish this first novel.

It's good immediately, and good long-term, but be prepared for some "is that it ?" post-partum depression in the middle.

[eviladam]

I finished my first one at like 19 or 20 and it was horrible. I wrote about half of a second novel with the same characters then I realised it was horrible. Like I must have been slipped acid when I wrote the first one. I almost finished another urban fantasy novel that I ended up abandoning mainlly because it just wasn't enough. I threw in a sub plot to get more out of it even and it was basically a long short story. I don't even think it falls into novella territory.

[Rashad 117]

I know what you mean. I'm currently working on a story now and I have few other story ideas in  the back of my thoughts. In fact just the other day as I was writing my current story another idea bullied its way into my thoughts.

So, I have another little notepad where I'll write down other story ideas on especially the ones that I think are really good and just save em for later.

When I first started this whole writing thing I had so many freakin ideas running through my head and I wanted to write them all but then I realized at a certain point that if I tried to write them all at the same time that I probably wouldn't get any ONE story done.

One story at a time unless you're a really good and fast writer and can manage five good novels in two months.