Well, as I announced in my previous blog post, to get the creative juices flowing, I began working on a second story in tandem with the fifth installment of the Monster Squad, Homecoming. I think I opened a can of worms. Although the two stories were beginning to form up nicely, more and more ideas began popping into this echoing cavern of a noodle of mine. The problem? The ideas had nothing to do with the two stories I was working on. They did, however, have to do with another story that I wanted to make into a trilogy…or a short series.
What to do??
Why, start a THIRD story as well. All while doing some minor editing on the first three MS stories and putting them back to back and restructuring the chapters in them for a little World Horror Con surprise. And breaking ground on a fourth little project that had been bouncing around in my head just so it would quit ricocheting off other ideas and really throwing me for loops.
So now, when I sit at my computer, the first major decision is…which one of these can of worms do I want to stick my hands into? Which story is calling to me? I had to draw a line in the sand. No more. No matter how many ideas flow from this stupid mind of mine, there is simply no way I could create them all. I wish I could…believe me, I do. There are stories just itching to pour forth, but my old arthritic hands can only pound out so many words at a time. And not all of the stories are worth the effort. At least, not to me.
Hmm. Is it a focus problem? Is it a time management problem? Or maybe it’s just a sanity problem…too many alternate realities jockeying for pole position? Regardless, it alleviates one problem. When I sit at my computer and my brain draws a blank on a particular project, I can quickly switch to another and see if anything comes to mind. While I absolutely DETEST doing things this way, I fear that at least for now, it’s how I’ll have to operate.
So there we have it. The inane ramblings of an inane storyteller. Oh yeah…I think I’m going to drop the whole ‘author’ thing. Some people take the title way too seriously. I don’t want to be one of those people. So, I think I prefer the title ‘Storyteller’. I feel it fits better.
For now, anyway.
Heath Stallcup Author 