Oh! Oh! I have an idea!

I've been vlogging a lot this past week, so you may have heard me mention in one of them that I've decided to write a fantasy novel. I've been busy plotting it out, getting all excited for it, since it definitely seems like it'll need more than one book to be complete. I've never even tried to write a series before!

However, there's one small problem: I'm currently in the middle of another project. Several other projects, as a matter of fact. There's the more-than-half-finished TSTB rewrite, which is coming along pretty well. (Kissing scene was written the other days, lots of swoons to be had.) There's what I planned to write for NaNo, another YA romance called I KILLED FIONA WASHBURN, whose characters I am in love with. There is the not-finished rewrite of THE UNLIKELIHOOD OF NOSTALGIA. Finally, there is the disaster that is THE REAPING OF JONAH SALT, a 12k word monstrosity that was more of a fun exercise than it was ever a real, viable idea.

I find it ironic that the most oft-asked questions of authors is, "Where do you get your ideas?" The question should be, "Where don't we get ideas?" It's constant, this influx of ideas. From movies, to television shows, to other books, to real life, to stories on the news--that where our ideas come from. And it can get really annoying when you're in the middle of one thing and another catches your eye, like you're a bird who is trying to build her nest with as many shiny (half-baked) ideas as you can.

My advice, however: don't switch horses in the middle of the stream.

If you are in the thick of one manuscript and you want to start another one, WAIT. Wait until you've come out of the other side in the darkness that is the middle, boring part of writing, and then see how you want to do your next idea. It's so tempting to stop what you're doing for a shiny new plot and set of characters who don't have the problems of your current manuscript, but it's really hard to finish one thing if you have ADD of the brain and can't stop jumping back and forth.

How do you deal with errant plot bunnies? Do you ignore them, wait, or jump right into a new story, no matter where you are in another?