But that doesn't stop me from having ideas, and what's an idea without at least some brainstorming around it?
I've had two short stories published this summer with Pill Hill Press - "Last Rites," in Haunted, and "Evergreen", in Fem Fangs (find them here: http://www.pillhillpress.com/books.html). And these two stories were not sitting around on my hard-drive, waiting for a publisher to find them. No, I wrote them because I saw an call for submissions with vague enough (yet specific enough) theme descriptions that I decided to drum up some ideas then plot them out. And I'm glad I did, obviously. So, I can't completely discount my ideas just because I'm working on something else (or several "something elses") right?
Which brings me to my thought.
I have an idea, one that's been churning for a while, and Pill Hill is accepting submissions for an anthology that fits the bill of my idea.
The problem is, my idea is vague. It's a world, and character, and a few specific scenes throughout, and the beginnings of an idea for a plot. But I have no idea what kind of supernatural beings will take over my setting, whether they will be peacefully (somewhat, because they can never completely be peaceful!) co-exist with the humans or just decimate them all, how my MC runs into hem, or basically anything else that helps me get the ball rolling.
So at the moment I have snow in July and a woman with a cool name in an indescript job. Sounds like I have my work cut out for me!
A friend of mine linked me today to Holly Lisle's mini plot clinic, which is free, and I've actually done it before (on a very basic level, as in: lesson 1), and it was helpful. So, I think I'll give it a whirl with Unnamed Urban Fantasy story (which I'll call UUF for now!) in mind. On a side-note, I was thinking that my NaNoWriMo novel this year will be Providence 2 (with a much cooler name) but maybe it'll be UUF... hmmm...
I can't reproduce anything from the plot clinic. It says so on the first page ☺ But it's full of exercises and ideas so basic I can't believe I never thought of a story that way before - and I think it might help. The whole (as in, not-mini) plot clinic book has a quote that really struck me today as I'm staring at my poorly outlined story, and I thought it was a simple enough idea I can post it.
For all you writers out there, remember this (courtesy of Holly Lisle):
Content is not logic’s strong point. Logic will not give you passion. It will not give you heart. It will not give you magic.
That's it. Passion, heart, magic - that's a plot. There's more to it than that, of course, but that's where it starts. So with that in mind, I'm going to do a few exercises and see if I can make some magic.
PS -- the weather's awesome, so I might do this outside. Gotta love early October!! ♥
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