Monday, April 30, 2012

Writer’s Slush Pile

Just like other aspiring authors, I do my best to follow the publishing industry. If check some of the blogs I follow you will see that the slush pile is a perpetual burden of tedium under which agents and editors labor. I only recently realized that, as a writer, I have a slush pile of my own.

I hate losing good ideas. I try to carry some type of notepad with me wherever I go so I can write down ideas as they occur. I keep a stack of 3x5 cards on my nightstand so I can write ideas that pop up in the middle of the night (I find the 3x5s work better because it lets me easily separate ideas by the story to which they apply). The problem is that I have too many ideas, concepts, and partially written scenes. The pile of paper on the edge of my desk is now four inches tall. This is my writer’s slush pile.

 I could spend a whole week just getting the ideas I’ve scratched out into an electronic form. Who wants to do that? There is too much to do. I’m between jobs so need to put some time into that. I need to finish some final tweaks on Avarice’s Hoard. I need to finish the outline for the new project I started to get a break from Avarice’s Hoard.

And yet the pile of ideas sits there taunting me, challenging me to dig through it, to remember those moments of inspiration. I have yet to find a satisfactory means for addressing this issue.

If you have found a way of dealing with your writer’s slush pile please share. I need ideas for managing my ideas.

2 comments:

  1. I'm with you. Still editing my first novel and I have the concepts for three other novels bouncing around in my head. One is written down, one a written down sort of, and the third I need to write down.

    I'm using Pinterest for keeping articles in order, but I need to discipline myself better.

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    1. I feel your pain. I just finished Avarice's Hoard which is the first of a trilogy. I have the rough outline of the next two books done. I'm 90% done with the final outline and have started chapter one of a stand alone book. Then I have initial concepts written for a series of 5 books plus three other stand alone books. Finally I have 6 short story concepts sketched out. That is just what I have in my writing directory on my computer...not counting concepts I have in my writer's slush pile. Looks like I will be writing for a while.

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