Thoughts on Sustaining a Story

First thought: It’s such a clever/great/amazing/ fun idea for a story!

Second thought: I need to write it down.

Third thought: I’ll just start with this character doing/saying something.

Begin writing…

Stall . . .

Fourth thought: Maybe it’s not that [great/good/workable/worthwhile] an idea.

Rather than abandoning the idea here, I remind myself that:

Writing is messy.There’s a reason people call it the “SFD” (Sh*tty First Draft).I need to first write for myself.My process always requires me to, at some point, write my way in (or sometimes through and even out).There needs to be clay on the table before I can mold it into something that looks like a story.I really do have something to say.

More importantly:

I can let this percolate.I may need time to be ready/able to write this.Not every idea works as a story.I can discard this idea if I want to.It might just need to live in [a drawer/a file/my brain] for an undetermined amount of time.Maybe it’s not my story to tell.

And that’s okay, because…

…I have more ideas than I will ever be able to use.

 

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