One week till CampNano and I simply must start a new story.
CampNano starts April 1st and, much like Nanowrimo in November, it’s a race to finish a book by the end of the month. Only instead of it being a set 50K words in a month, you get to chose your own tort… I mean novel length. I set mine at 65K because I’m crazy and joined the overachievers writing group (cabin) and caved to peer pressure 🙂
So I have the idea for Patenting Magic, characters and general outline (a 1 page big picture outline, I’m so pantsing this one) and a few days ago, I get an idea for a new short story from a dream.
I did TreeTop Adventures last weekend, a ropes course, which is basically an obstacle course about 30 to 50 feet in the air. It was awesome! It killed my arms and while I was up there I was cursing myself for doing it again because dammit, it’s hard and I’m tiny, but getting through those obstacles and working your ass (and arms!) off, is so much fun. And beating that challenge, when less than half who try succeed, is a great feeling. You know you accomplished something, you did something.
Kind of like writing a novel 🙂
This all ties in, I swear. I got the idea for the short story from the ropes course. The main character is Millie, the same one from Patenting Magic, and she’s on a first date doing a ropes course when something magic attacks and everyone but her suddenly goes blank-faced and starts climbing down and gathering. It’s like they’re possessed or under some kind of mind control.
I got the idea because while I was resting on the platforms between obstacles (don’t judge, after the first half, they’re hard) my mind wandered. We were 30 feet up on harnesses and wooden, built into the trees platforms between obstacles made of ropes and wood. We were basically sitting ducks with no fast way down if anything happened. So, my mind obviously went to, what would happen if someone attacked?
Now, this went from a what if someone just started shooting from the ground, to a what if everyone else was taken over, got down and they went after the one person not effected?
So I had the idea and filed it away, then two nights later, I had a dream. It started at some kind of outdoor theater and I was in a play and people suddenly got taken over and started marching and they were all working on something. I snuck in and got one person out of it by reminding him of his life, and strong emotions tied to the memories pulled him out.
So when I woke up from what was actually a very disturbing dream at the time, I had a great idea for my story. I smashed my treetops daydream together with the dream, and I have what I think is a pretty cool story. I started writing it that day.
Now, I’m not too far into it, and I really really want to finish it before I start CampNano, because once that starts, I won’t have time for anything but that book. I want to get it out this week while it’s still fresh and exciting and I can remember the fear I had in the dream and in the trees.
Sooooooo?
I’m going to suck it up and write my ass off this weekend I guess 🙂 The point of this little story is, if you have an idea and it’s burning right now because you had a dream or whatever, write it now. It’s fresh, you’re excited, and if not now, when?
Happy writing!
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