I have been working on a second novel lately. Well, to be honest I have been letting my subconscious work on a second novel. I don’t know if I have a creative process or if I just have delusions, but I thought it would be helpful for me to remind myself how I think this process works for me by writing about it.

I start with a big idea. I work the idea for a few days and move it around on paper. I outline some ideas and then decide that the idea can’t work. I then toss the idea into my subconscious for a week or so. When I pull it back out there might be a new twist to it that I then outline and throw away. I put the idea back into my subconscious and let it go through another couple weeks of mystical work. Eventually I have to decide whether the idea is worth pursuing or not.

While all that nonsense is going on in the back of my head I begin the process of writing scenes. I don’t even want to think about how these scenes are connected to each other. They will work themselves out. I don’t know how it will work out, it just will. As I begin writing scenes I try not to think about the big picture. I just write. I usually set a goal for getting 1,500 words down each day, I figure if I can get 45,000 words in a month I have something worth continuing.

I have been playing around with the same idea for about a year and a half; I am no Steven King. I have been waiting for my “well to fill up” as Hemingway put it, waiting for my subconscious to fill in the gaps and for my passion for a single project to begin.

Yesterday, I began moving a few ideas around on paper and think I have worked out the major problems with my new novel so I am going to take some time off from my blog. I hope to have the big chunks of the novel knocked out by Christmas Break and then I will come back and let you know what happened.