Something I do when I get stuck on one project is I hop to another one. This can be good, but for me, more often than anything it’s very bad. It’s probably why I haven’t honestly completed any of my novel ideas.
Let me lay all of this out for you. I will have what I consider to be an awesome novel idea and I’ll get super excited about it. I’ll write everything that is on my mind about it down and maybe even start writing part of the story if that is what is on my mind at the time. I’ll have a bunch of scribbles and such all over the paper. I have ideas all the time. It got to the point that I bought a journal specifically for my ideas and pieces of stories. I say pieces of stories because sometimes when I have an idea I just have a part of the story stuck in my mind and I don’t really have the actual concept at the time.
The idea that looks super promising is the one I’ll start the actually working on. I’ll work on it until I get stuck. I could just have no idea where the story is going next or I could have something that I need to research a bit before I actually write it (accuracy is important). Sometimes I just get frustrated and need a break from that particular story. I typically just start working on another project. No problem there, right?
There are times when I’m not stuck and I just get more excited about a different idea than I am about the idea I am presently working on and move to the idea that I am more excited about. The enthusiasm for an idea definitely helps drive the writing process. The thing is though… I can’t turn this love of writing into a job if I can’t seem to focus on an idea long enough to finish a project. I feel like I project hop far too much.
Does anyone else have this problem?
Until next time… Kara