Ideas come when I’m writing. There’s just no getting around it. I can stare at a blank screen until the cows come home (and I don’t even have any cows). I can take walks, do all the things that are times when ideas normally strike. The ideas will still likely come at those times, but they won’t come unless I’m writing. And revisions don’t count. It has to be real first draft (or at least second draft) writing. (Second drafts, I’m usually still doing quite a lot of new writing, putting in things I missed, skipped over, or didn’t know I needed until I got farther along in the story.) It seems like writing something new just engages some part of my brain that otherwise won’t talk to me.
So, I was a little stumped on MAGIC’S FOOL and decided to start BLOOD IS THICKER in addition to it. Well, wouldn’t you know it, as soon as I’d gotten a couple of chapters into BLOOD IS THICKER, my brain threw up just the ideas I needed to get back into MAGIC’S FOOL. Of course, while still throwing up ideas for the next chapters of BLOOD IS THICKER. I need to clone myself so I can work on both at the same time.
I’m wrapping up a round of revisions from some excellent critiques on SEVEN STARS and itching to get back into both of my new projects.
I’m going to change just a little of what I’ve got in MAGIC’S FOOL. Then I’m going to start back up with my protagonist in a game of jarai (sort of soccer on horseback, but with three sides instead of two).
Chapter 3 of BLOOD IS THICKER will embroil my characters in some interesting political shenanigans.
Meanwhile, the latest interview on Farland’s Authors’ Advisories has inspired me to start the research for my alternate history story.
Looks like I’m going to be pretty busy for a while.
Meredith Mansfield, Author 
I’m late, but better late than never, right? 🙂 You dropped by my blog a few weeks ago (fellow campaigner) and now I’m finally getting around to pop by yours.
I have to say that I don’t run short of ideas — my problem is that they’re squirmy little things and I have to work hard to pin one down and expand it into a larger, more useable plot. Only then do I figure out which squirmy little ideas have potential!
Piers Anthony (bestselling fantasy author) has a method which seems to work for those who get stuck for ideas or have cornered themselves in the plot. He continues writing, but in rough “conversation” form with himself. Writing the problem down and working through it seems to be better than walking around with it in in the back of the head. I tend to agree — the same thing happens when I do a chapter summary.
Now following your blog. 🙂
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Hmm. Perhaps I should distinguish between Ideas (Big I, as in this is what my book is about) and ideas (little i, as in how do I get from here to there).
I have enough Big Ideas to keep me writing for at least the next five years. By which time, I’m sure I’ll have a whole crop of new ones. Those Ideas can come from a lot of different sources.
But, I’m mostly a discovery writer. I map out the high (and low) points of the story beforehand to keep me from straying too far into the weeds. But every now and then I get to a point and say “Okay, now what?” That’s particularly likely at the very beginning of a story, since I haven’t had a chance to build a lot of momentum, yet. And those ideas are the ones that my mind tends to give me only when I’m actually writing.
Both MAGIC’S FOOL and BLOOD IS THICKER are on chapter 3, so still pretty close to the beginning.
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