I'm now coming to the end of my WIP, the finish line at the end of the tunnel is in sight (yes, I mixed my metaphors, what are you going to do about it?) and what invariably happens at this stage of a project is my mind gets flooded with all these new shiny novel or short story ideas. This is very annoying. It's distracting from the most important part of the book, the denouement, the climax of climaxes, the bit where all the disparate little threads of thought are wound together into a beautiful macrame teddy bear which the reader can hug to hold onto the magic of the story. But then the other ideas come and they stay your hand from tying those knots and they dance and sing and frolic before you, tempting you away from your work.
Do not go! Avoid temptation! Sit back down and finish that book you've been writing for what feels like 63,000 years. Are you sat back down? Good. So what can we do about those pesky ideas? Listen closely and I shall tell you.
There are three options.
1. You can be tempted away, start a new writing project with this new, shiny, best idea EVA and have the same thing happen 5k from the end. Your call.
2. You can ignore those flashy lights and bells and whistles, you can put your ear muffs on and hunker down under a blanket until they go away. But they won't go away. Do you know why? Because they're inside your head!
3. You can catch the little gits and force them onto a piece of paper. Tether them to the fibres of dead tree or the cyber page. Write down everything you know about them, everything that comes into your head and do it quickly. Then put that page or notebook in a drawer and lock them away until the last word is written on your current project. When you have done that, you can let them out, pick the best one and start the process all over again.
What will you do? I'll give you a hint - 1 & 2 are the wrong answer.
Happy holidays!
