Feb 8, 2021
Do you get story ideas that you know you’ll never write?
I took a nap this afternoon, and woke up from a dream about a Scottish lady returning to the Highlands after being held captive for many years, and deciding whether to go to war and seek revenge. There’s a book in there, but I probably won’t write it. I don’t know enough about the time period (in the way back days) or of Scotland to carry it off. Sure, I could change the location and the time, but then it wouldn’t have the same magic. And what genre would that fit in? Not romance, although I suppose it would be possible to wiggle a love story in there. I don’t see it as sword and sorcery, either.
I’ve got several ideas floating in my head attached to the Free Wolves series. Imagine a special unit of alpha wolves in the US military. They’ve got to find a channel for their aggression somewhere. Those stories would have their share of detailed sex, and I’m not ready to go there—yet. I still have to figure out the story of Counselor Carlson, who lives like a monk despite being the alpha of alphas. And Lori from Wolves’ Gambit has more adventures waiting to be told.
Have I mentioned that Jake from the Harmony Duprie Mysteries finally opened up to me? I thought I was done with the series. (Or will be as soon as I finish editing The Ranger’s Dog Tags and get it released.) What am I going to do with a prequel story written from the anti-hero’s point of view? Well, once I get done writing it. He’s getting impatient because I’m ignoring him and concentrating on Harmony’s last book.
Did I tell you the one about…okay, I’ll quit now. You get the picture. Ideas aren’t my issue. Well, they are because I don’t have enough time to write all of them. Or they aren’t right for me at the moment. I’m sure there are ideas I’ve had that I’ve forgotten. I’ve never made a habit of writing them down to come back to. There was one about a private eye on a cruise ship, chasing the bad guys over the hills of Italy….
Enough already! I need to quit while I’m ahead and go check out the other authors on this hop. Come with me by clicking on the links below.
Until next time, please stay safe.
Do you get story ideas that you know you’ll never write?
Rules:
1. Link your blog to this hop.
2. Notify your following that you are participating in this blog hop.
3. Promise to visit/leave a comment on all participants’ blogs.
4. Tweet/or share each person’s blog post. Use #OpenBook when tweeting.
5. Put a banner on your blog that you are participating.
Yay! I am not the only one that gets loaded with story ideas from my dreams! I have blogged about that so many times before! I know what it is like to abandon some ideas knowing i will never write them as they dont fit into the little multiverse of stories that i have written out and dont want to spend an enormous amount of time designing a new world and try to fit the story into it.
I feel for you!
I don’t have a grand world planned out, So I’m free to shift genres and worlds anytime I want. The characters just have to yell at me loud enough for it to make it to the top of my priorities.
That could be a description of my mind most days. I try to keep up and do something with the best ideas, even so there are just too many.
Ah yes, the cruise ship. I always wanted to write a story about a murder on a cruise ship. It took me about two years to actually get around to doing it!
I’ve never been on a cruise. That’s something I might want to do before trying to write the story!
I’ve been on three, and I can honestly say… no more. Not after the ride of death at Grand Cayman.
I need to go on a cruise as an excuse that I need the material for a book. Now to think of an idea to justify that. 😀 And suddenly have the money for that, but maybe someday! Also, it sounds like you have a healthy flow of ideas. Yay!
Wow, Stevie, where in the world did you find an idea like that? 😉
After three cruises, Mr Huston, and three was enough.
I worked with an Englishman who played drums on cruise ships for many years. He still loves cruises. Fat people in crowded hot tubs, cover bands, cleverly disguised reheated food service dinners… No thanks. No sailing life for me!
You’ve nailed it there, Phil. My husband re-named the P&O cruises ‘Pensioners and Obese’. We enjoyed the first two, but the last one was awful. Never again!
Cruises always seemed like a week sleeping next to a bar to me and I’m married to a guy who likes to climb mountains. So we’d miss the boat if we did a shore excursion. The closest we’ve come is the Alaska Marine Highway. It takes four days to get from Haines to Bellingham (or five to sail from Seward).– about half the price and you sleep on the deck in a tent. My son and I did the Aleutians a few years back. Call it adventure cruising.
Much higher entertainment value.
If I gave every idea, every character all the turf they wanted I’d be like Howard Hughes without the money or ex wives.
Some characters can be quite demanding!
But don’t we demand a lot from them as well? 😉
Hey, they ask for it!
I agree, but I think Kilgore Trout might not.
But what did Trout really want? Certainly not more work, he was prolific. Money? Recognition? I think he made himself available, like the guest star repeaters on “Perry Mason”. Put me in coach, I’m ready to play
Demanding characters are the ones who wake you up in the middle of the night, in the middle of some situation they want you transcribe.
To my sometimes regret, I am real good at ignoring them and going back to sleep.
Me, too. They usually come back. “Now that you’re awake… I was doing that Noir femme fatale thing that Jax knows is bullshit, but nobody else, well, that’s the scene so can we get to it?”
I also get the odd idea from dreams. I don’t seem to dream very much but when I do I usually wake up afterwards. I often get up and write down the idea which disappears by the morning. I also have a time issue, Patricia. Writing takes time, as does everything else in life. We have to prioritise our idea.
Lately, I’ve been dirt dry of ideas. I’ve started doing poems or short stories from writing prompts to help with that stagnant emptiness of ideas.
Denise, I hope there’s a grand idea just waiting for the right moment to burst into the front of your thoughts. And poems and short stories are helping you refine your skills, so when that idea blossoms you’ll be ready for it.
Roberta, it isn’t that you aren’t dreaming, it’s that you are sleeping so soundly that you don’t remember them. At least, that’s what sleep scientists claim.