Leaving your ideas to rot in the waiting room

Or: How to not not write!

You know when you get an idea for a story and feel that tingle of excitement in your belly? A feeling that this idea must surely be your best one yet? In fact, this idea must be the best idea anyone’s ever thought of in the history of the world, but alas, you do not have time to write it at this very minute, because you’re working, or you have to take the kids to the dentist, or yourself for a hearing test, or your cat to the vet, or your other half wants to have a conversation, or some crazy shit like that.

Or you’re stuck inside that other writing project which you’re determined to finish before you let yourself be lured away by this bright, new idea, like you were the time before, and the time before that, and… well, really, quite a few times actually, which explains all those folders on your computer filled with the now dulled ideas of the past.

This is not quite the situation I find myself right at this minute, but I have a hunch that it’s something akin to it.

Two months ago I delivered my second novel to my agent, who has now read it and told me it deserves to win prizes, and that she’ll begin submitting it in earnest in September when life starts up again after this period of limbo that is July and August.

Two months, and still I haven’t recovered from the slump I encountered straight after having delivered this piece of work. I’m not sure why this is as I normally bounce back and start writing something new straight away. But I do know that I bled my soul into this novel, and I do know that I worked on and off on it for over a decade, and for the past year that was all “ON”. So perhaps I’m simply suffering burn-out, which would suggest that I also need to give myself a break and allow myself to embrace this period of limbo that is July and August

The thing is, I find myself, not not writing. No new words are forming on the page, but I’m sifting through old manuscripts, those dull ideas of old, or those bright ideas that nonetheless were rejected. I edit and write chapter breakdowns, and research where to submit them. And speaking of research, I’m also researching a novel. But all this is being done in my native language of Swedish, because my English writing brain remains dead as a doornail. Sometimes though, it sparks into life for long enough to allow it consider what my next novel in English might be, only to then short-circuit again.

I suppose it happens, I suppose I simply wore myself out researching words that came into use before century 900 in order to get the right storytelling feel throughout this novel of 107,000 words, and which also contains four different strands and two levels of narration.

‘But what’s all this other stuff about then?’ I hear you say. ‘The not not writing writing you’re doing.’

‘Imagine a waiting room,’ I say. ‘Say at your doctor’s surgery.’

‘Alright, I’m imagining it.’

‘Now imagine that you’ve chucked all the sick people out onto the street and replaced them with your ideas, a chair for each one.’

‘Cruel, but interesting,’ you say.

‘The doctor, that’s you the writer, is only able to give their full attention to one idea at a time, and while that idea is being examined no other idea is allowed to enter the treatment room.’

‘This is so good,’ you say. ‘I’ve never thought about it like this before.’

‘And you can keep adding as many ideas as you like to the waiting room, but that’s where they’ll stay until you’ve finished a full examination of your current idea, as well as healed it and sent it back out into the world.’

‘You mean written and submitted it?’ you say.

‘I do, yes.’

‘But won’t…’

‘Go on, say it,’ I urge.

‘Won’t the waiting ideas die there in the waiting room? Especially if they have to wait for so many years.’

‘Of course they will, and there’s nothing you can do about that.’

‘Oh.’

‘But for every idea you give your full attention to, you’ll have one whole finished manuscript.’

‘That’s not so bad,’ you say. ‘Not so bad at all.’

What I’ve done now, after delivering this gargantuan piece of work, is that I’ve opened the door to the waiting room for the first time in years and I’m not sure what it is that I’m looking at. What are all these ideas? Which one deserves my attention? I really haven’t got a clue after having been so invested in a single one for this long. But I do know that I need a change. Yes, a different language will do for a while. An idea for children instead of one for adults. But should I pick that one or that one? And here comes a brand new idea striding in. I’m doing nothing else, so I could easily let that one straight through. And yet, some of these ideas have actually been inside my room before for brief periods, and some are almost finished. It would be a shame not to deal with those first.

With my opening of files, my bits of editing, my reading and researching, what I’m doing is walking around the waiting room, prodding ideas, seeing if they’ll hold, working out which one appeals to me the most, while letting my active brain take the back seat.

I’m not a hundred percent certain that I shouldn’t simply be lying in my hammock, reading and sipping sparkling water with a slice of lemon. But the summer holidays have just been sprung on us and there’ll be time for that yet. Just before I finish though, let me grab this broom here, to sweep out all these husks of long since dead ideas.

Photo by Gayatri Malhotra on Unsplash

In other writing news:

• I’ve submitted a middle grade manuscript to a competition. Deadline 5th August, results in September.

• I’ve been reacquainting myself with the dialect of my childhood in order to experiment with writing in it.

• I’ve been drumming my fingers on my desk as I, as of this afternoon, have three manuscripts on submission

• I’m currently reading State of Wonder by Ann Patchett.

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