Lou’s comic book thing was kind of a joke in Wolf, but I think it’s going to be important in this book. Which of course made me want to go find back issues of Fangoria. Which made Cass roll up a comic book and beat me over the head with it.
“What do you think you’re doing? I’m in the middle of a book here, Writer Wench, and you left me hanging after The Good Stuff got started to go think about comic books? Get back here and finish MY story!”
Um. She said lots of other things, but they contain spoilers. Or maybe profanity. Anyway, the comic books are important. The unconscious brain says so and it’s never wrong. So I will put that into the story file and then go back to work on Cass.
Also going into the story file is the stuff for Hal’s Heroes #2 I woke up with after the comic book thing. I’m getting a huge buildup of stuff in my brain, I think a story explosion is about to happen. It does seem to go in cycles like that.
I keep files for every story, finished and in progress, with all sorts of stuff. Background material, research, scene sketches, dialog, plot ideas. All neatly organized so I don’t lose it and it’s all there when I go to work on the story. Electronic works for me this way, if I use paper I lose it. Your mileage may vary. Anyway, when I get pieces of the story like this I write it down and put it in the file. So when I go to put it together I’ve got all these pieces and it’s like a puzzle.
Much more productive than starting from scratch every time, I think. It’s easier on me, at least. When I first started, I’d get an idea and jump right into writing it instead of letting it simmer and collecting pieces of it. This led to lots of rewriting. I don’t rewrite nearly as much now, because the unconscious brain is working on it ahead of time, ironing out the kinks.
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