I never know how long an idea will need to simmer before it’s ready for story-form. Sometimes it’s a matter of minutes. Other times, months. Still other times an idea needs to sit for years before anything comes of it.
(As an unpublished, unprofessional writer, this is fine, because no one cares about my productivity: one of the pros of writing-just-for-fun. Possibly the only pro, but still important.) The above page is from a current project – an idea I first had ten years ago, when I was fifteen. At fifteen, I was pretty good at coming up with interesting characters and interesting settings for them to mess around in, but I was less good at cobbling together coherent plots. Around chapter three, I gave it up, comforting myself with the thought that someday I would be enough of a writer to make something happen.
Ten years and two novels later, I’m well past chapter three and it’s going rather swimmingly, I think. At least it’s been a fine distraction from the disgusting cold that’s decided to live in my respiratory system for the rest of the winter.
Maybe I can get to page 100 by the time my writer’s group meets next.
(Hahahahahahahahahaa! Sure.)