Personally, I’m a fan of finishing no matter what and fighting through what you have. At its core, this discipline is what separates a novelist from a short story writer. True, you don’t want to get bogged down with bad ideas, weak characters, and tired plots, but it’s the act of writing that moves you away from such things. The more you write novels, the better you’ll be at writing novels. I think it took King four or five novels before Carrie, and he’s just one of many examples. I wonder how many he trashed. I think he did actually trash Carrie at one point.

If the book sucks, at least you wrote a novel. That’s a badge to pin on your chest. In this day and age with diminishing attention spans and countless distractions, it’s a major accomplishment. Not many people actually finish a novel. There’s a litany of excuses. We’ve heard them all. If the novel blows, oh well. Go on to the next one. And when you do get published down the road, you can re-work your finished novels that didn’t sell, or cannibalize them.

It’s said way too much, but everyone is unique and needs to find a method that works best for them. If stopping halfway through a novel and moving to another helps a writer improve, then go for it. For me, I’d start entering paralysis by analysis. I’d probably also develop a habitat of dropping a lot of projects because of a tastier looking idea–especially when I wasn’t as enthused about the project for a few days (which happens, so add something to the story or characters that gets your juices flowing again). Again, that goes back to the attention span issue, and we’re not all created equal there. Some people can sit through 2001: A Space Odyssey, while others squirm in their seats.

For me, it’s about the discipline, about sitting down every day and meeting that word count. Inherent in this process is writing a beginning, middle, and ending.

My problem lately is idea overload. After a bit of a drought, I now find myself coming up with three or four new ideas for every one I finish. I even came up with one perfectly logical story from a dream, and my dreams normally have no logic to them. And sometimes the new idea (like that dream) is so compelling I have to put down a story that I like. That dream story distracted me for three days, turning into an even better story. And when it was done, almost immediately another story demanded my attention. Yet there’s another perfectly good story sitting on the back burner, one I’m almost as eager to finish.

If I have to have a writing problem, too many ideas is a good one; but I think it also means I don’t have enough writing time.

I just finished Blood Meridian, and I’m close to saying it’s the best thing I’ve ever read.

I’ll have to pick up a copy of Game of Thrones.

btw, I love Shakespeare! He rocks!

Looking forward to more journal entries/mini reviews!

Guess this means I need to get started on my January story. Yikes!