Warning: manure imagery.

Thinking about ideas for stories is like taking a shit. It takes a long time to get ready, and then it's all out very fast.

While you're chewing on that, let me explain the context. I have a list of ideas for long projects (novels usually, screenplays occasionally, plays rarely, although it wasn't always so). Now, when you're an untrained, unschooled "writer" like me, you can't start immediately writing a draft at the first hint of an idea. If you do, you'll wind up writing yourself into corners, forgetting where you want to go, and so on.

Aside: I've only taken one creative writing course and I've never had any prose published, though I have had a few plays produced (for no money). So, I'm not exactly a writer, really. Especially since I haven't written a word in over two years. And by "writing" I obviously don't mean this blog--I'm talking creative stuff.

Anyhow, where was I? Right. For my first full-length play, I didn't really do an outline, just a hell of a lot of drafts, but I was young, stupid, and in college at the time. For my second, I started a play, randomly, with very little forethought, then scrapped it and outlined a new one, using the old play as a subplot. I finished it in 1997 and I'm very proud of it. No one will touch it with a ten foot pole. Oh, well, that's show biz--you move on.

The longest thing I've ever written is still unfinished; a fantasy novel, of which I've written maybe two-thirds. But with this one, I put a lot of effort into re-writing the outline, many times, getting familiar with the characters and so forth, before committing a single word to the text itself. It helped, though I made changes during the writing process, naturally. Again, I haven't written a word of it since 2000. Some of it is good, some is pretty awful. I don't know if I'll ever finish it, but I hope I do, if only so I don't become one of those people with half a novel in their closet drawer.

Now I have two good ideas for novels. One is straight, one is another fantasy-ish thing, though more subtle than the above. And I'm terrified to even begin them, because I might never finish the first one. And, for that matter, because I might finish the first one and hate it.

This sort of thing is very familiar to real writers, I'm sure--even my blocks aren't original. I hope to overcome it. But here's the trick: every time I get a rejection, the wind goes out of my sails. So even if I do finish one, two, three, or none of these books, the moment someone--anyone!--says they don't like them, I'll give up.

I've decided I'll be much happier if I give up sooner rather than later. So! If you have the capability to read a Microsoft Word document, and would like to tell me what you think of my unfinished novel (about 250 double-spaced pages so far), drop me a line and I'll send it to you. Hey, why not? Maybe it's actually good after all.
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I just read the opening paragraph again, and I realized I had originally intended to write about how long my ideas take to percolate before they're fully formed. Hmmm... I should have done an outline.