How my break from writing is going.

When I finished Doorways, I decided I'd take a writing break to recover. I mean, I've been working on the story for six years.

Two months, I promised myself. Two months of sleeping in and complete hedonism. Watching t.v. Painting. Singing. Playing guitar.... Aahh... it made me happy just to think about.

And then last week happened.

On Wednesday, I dreamed a dream. Most of it was nonsense. But there was this guy. And what he was doing completely hooked my mind. So it started spinning, but that's okay. I'd give it six months to incubate, the same as I did with Doorways. Back then, I gave up on plotting, but I didn't just jump in and write. I waited. I got to know the characters. I learnt what made them tick and what made them explode. Then I learnt enough about their world to explore it without getting completely lost. And I'm pretty sure it's reason number 1 why I finished it all the way through edits.

By the time I started drafting, I knew enough to find the story. And by the rewrite, I knew exactly what was going on. Which is notable, because I have multiple storylines. I even know what's going on outside the scene. Even though most of it isn't writted down.

But here's a bit of a problem. The Doorways world is alive in my head. It takes up a lot of space, so it's hard for me to get to any of my other story ideas. Because I want to keep Doorways to the fore (it'll be too hard to remember everything later if/when I have to write the sequels), I needed to figure out a way to pull out the thoughts without pushing Doorways too much.

So I decided to let my mind hang back on this dream and start figuring things out on it's own. After all. I have about 6 weeks left of my break.
Except I read this post. Although it didn't really say anything I didn't learn the hard way, it was the missing piece that helped me figure out how to finish my WiP3 or as you might know it, Don't Look Back. 3 has already gotten more than enough thought. In fact its first draft is about as finished as I'll get it.

So... What I have to do is to pull out the plot parts I liked and rewrite it into an even better story. TO do that, I need to plan. But it took more than Doorways, because I wrote it a lot faster and didn't get as much time to mull on it.

So I found a way to do this. (Will post about it tomorrow). I now have a very excellent idea as to what will happen in that story. And in the dream story, because I decided to check it out while I was on a roll.

Now it's just a matter of time to see how long it will take my muse to yank me away from my other activities.

Do you get a LOT of inspiration the moment you stop looking for it?