Meredith Mansfield, Author

It’s an odd thing.  Or maybe it’s not.  But I get my best writing ideas when I’m writing.  Not just ideas for the story I’m working on, although that happens, too.  Ideas for other stories or brand new stories come easier and faster when I’m writing.

I don’t mean precisely when I’m sitting at the keyboard.  When I’m writing something new, more ideas come to me all the time.  It doesn’t happen that way when I’m primarily working on revisions.  Something about writing new scenes and chapters and stories sort of greases the skids.  My subconscious gets on track and starts pumping ideas out at me whenever my brain is more or less idle–in the shower, walking the dogs, pulling weeds.

That can get frustrating.  I’ve had ideas take over and force me to write them out before I could get back to what I thought I was supposed to be working on.  Most of the time, though, I can just open the appropriate file, jot down a few notes, and then get back on track.

This was brought home to me this last week as I started working on a new novel, MAGE STORM.  I had been working on revisions and waiting for new inspiration to come to me for the abandoned novel SEVEN STARS.  Nothing much came.  I started work on MAGE STORM and suddenly I’m seeing what I need to do with SEVEN STARS.  The ideas are coming, now. 

SEVEN STARS will have to wait, though.  I’m on chapter 3 and starting to really get into MAGE STORM.