Birth of "Away in the Manger"
There are times when a story leaps into your brain and shouts joyously "Write me!" Unfortunately usually this comes while you're trying to get something else done and you grumble back "Go away, leave me alone."
So one day, Jack and his band of friends ambushed me. I can't find the exact date at the moment since I've referred back to the original file to remind myself of the basic gist.
#
Jack was the first to spot the barge coming downriver. He was up on the belfry, salvaging the parts of the big clock for some gizmo or gadget he had planned. They made him come up with a harness to make sure he wouldn't fall.
"Dogs aren't built for climbing." Robert pointed out, lazily swinging his tail from his perch halfway up the tower. He was showing off because he couldn't make heads or tails of gizmo and gadgets and it bothered him.
Jack suffered the harness, so he was nearly tied into place when he spotted the barge. "Hoi! Hoi!"
"What are you barking at?" Timothy grumbled. He was the heaviest, so they'd used him to counteranchor Jack. He had all four hooves planted and was resigned that he was stuck in place.
"There's a thing! In the water! What do you call them?"
"How the bloody hell would I know." Timothy grumbled.
"A boat." Robert supplied a word, walking around the narrow ledge of the belfry. "A ship. A dory. Ah, that's a barge."
"Do you think it has Spam on it?" Jack cried.
"Who bloody cares?" Timothy said. "Stop bouncing around or you'll come off the pivot and then where will you be? Sixty feet down and a big wet mess."
The barge was slowly drifting down the river, a big square of steel on the gray water. It was going to clear the old pilings of the half-ruined bridge, but it looked as if it run around on the little island built up around the second bridge.
#
Yes, that's word for word exactly what my creative back brain spit into the consciousness. 261 words of "WTF." Nothing else. The names would all change except Jack, but the meat is there in a nutshell. A dog, a cat, and pony all able to talk and somewhat manipulate tools salvaging things in a post-apocalyptic world.
The "go away, don't bother me" is because I'm grinding away on a novel deadline. I can't really afford to go chasing off after the new shiny, much as I would love to. Novels are huge massive, long, brutal things and I've never been able to finish one without loathing it. (I love it again once I get the hardcover copy in my hands with the guarantee that there's no more work to be done.) If I chased after every new shiny, I'd never get done on my novels.
On the other hand, however, once the current novel is done, the next project needs to be ready to roll. What's the next project? That's where the new shiny might be important. (Ironically the idea for WOOD SPRITES ambushed me a few days later.) With that in mind, I write down all the ideas that ambush me, just in case. If I really love the idea, I give it a day or two of playtime before shutting it down.
The face off with the lawnmower and the discussion of 'whoever made this world' spring up and get written down while I struggle with big world problems. Why are these three animals together? Are there other talking animals? Where are all the humans? What happened? Key to answering the questions is: how can these three animals fix/change their world? Of course not all stories need to be "change the world" but it's easier to start big and scale small than the other way around. I get an idea of what the world dynamics are and sketch them out.
What kicks in next is "business person" versus "artist." What is the market value of the story? As an artist, do I love the idea so much that I pursue it regardless of its worth? Or as an self-employed business person, do I decide that there's no money in it? The idea cropped up just as I'm hammering out ideas to pitch to my publisher, so these are serious questions. All novels often start out with a little as this in the beginning, which needs to be spun into something bigger. Unfortunately new ideas are always shiny and loveable and trying to figure out which to focus on is difficult.
I realize that part of the idea hinges on post-apocalyptic coolness. Since most mythologies have such stories, there must be something about the tales that the human brain just loves. It gets a plus mark for that. Unfortunately, the talking animals bring all sorts of problem to "marketability." People like to have a character that they can identify with, but the main characters are all animals. Yes, Jack is a fun character but he's not going to have human problems.
My two halves fling literary examples at each other, from Animal Farm (come on, we all hated it in eighth grade) to Watership Down to Redwall. In the end, I decide that I'm not going to devote a novel to it. Business person stamps it with "fail" and files it away. Artist pouts a lot. In August, however, Baen asked me if I could do a Christmas short story. The artist jumps up and shouts "What's more Christmas than talking animals?"
Business person glares at the artist and suggests tie-in to novels already written as gateway to those worlds. Artist points out that most of my projects have time constraints. For example, Elfhome ended with Tinker in the middle of September. To write a Christmas story for her, I would either have to do it prior to her meeting Windwolf, or risk driving myself insane trying to match up timelines of two future novels to one short story. Both artist and business person cringe at that idea.
Finally the artist plays the trump card. "If I write this short, I'll wear the shiny off." Business person knows that artist is much more reasonable once the shiny all wears off a new idea. They agree. A few days later, the rough draft of the story is done.
So one day, Jack and his band of friends ambushed me. I can't find the exact date at the moment since I've referred back to the original file to remind myself of the basic gist.
#
Jack was the first to spot the barge coming downriver. He was up on the belfry, salvaging the parts of the big clock for some gizmo or gadget he had planned. They made him come up with a harness to make sure he wouldn't fall.
"Dogs aren't built for climbing." Robert pointed out, lazily swinging his tail from his perch halfway up the tower. He was showing off because he couldn't make heads or tails of gizmo and gadgets and it bothered him.
Jack suffered the harness, so he was nearly tied into place when he spotted the barge. "Hoi! Hoi!"
"What are you barking at?" Timothy grumbled. He was the heaviest, so they'd used him to counteranchor Jack. He had all four hooves planted and was resigned that he was stuck in place.
"There's a thing! In the water! What do you call them?"
"How the bloody hell would I know." Timothy grumbled.
"A boat." Robert supplied a word, walking around the narrow ledge of the belfry. "A ship. A dory. Ah, that's a barge."
"Do you think it has Spam on it?" Jack cried.
"Who bloody cares?" Timothy said. "Stop bouncing around or you'll come off the pivot and then where will you be? Sixty feet down and a big wet mess."
The barge was slowly drifting down the river, a big square of steel on the gray water. It was going to clear the old pilings of the half-ruined bridge, but it looked as if it run around on the little island built up around the second bridge.
#
Yes, that's word for word exactly what my creative back brain spit into the consciousness. 261 words of "WTF." Nothing else. The names would all change except Jack, but the meat is there in a nutshell. A dog, a cat, and pony all able to talk and somewhat manipulate tools salvaging things in a post-apocalyptic world.
The "go away, don't bother me" is because I'm grinding away on a novel deadline. I can't really afford to go chasing off after the new shiny, much as I would love to. Novels are huge massive, long, brutal things and I've never been able to finish one without loathing it. (I love it again once I get the hardcover copy in my hands with the guarantee that there's no more work to be done.) If I chased after every new shiny, I'd never get done on my novels.
On the other hand, however, once the current novel is done, the next project needs to be ready to roll. What's the next project? That's where the new shiny might be important. (Ironically the idea for WOOD SPRITES ambushed me a few days later.) With that in mind, I write down all the ideas that ambush me, just in case. If I really love the idea, I give it a day or two of playtime before shutting it down.
The face off with the lawnmower and the discussion of 'whoever made this world' spring up and get written down while I struggle with big world problems. Why are these three animals together? Are there other talking animals? Where are all the humans? What happened? Key to answering the questions is: how can these three animals fix/change their world? Of course not all stories need to be "change the world" but it's easier to start big and scale small than the other way around. I get an idea of what the world dynamics are and sketch them out.
What kicks in next is "business person" versus "artist." What is the market value of the story? As an artist, do I love the idea so much that I pursue it regardless of its worth? Or as an self-employed business person, do I decide that there's no money in it? The idea cropped up just as I'm hammering out ideas to pitch to my publisher, so these are serious questions. All novels often start out with a little as this in the beginning, which needs to be spun into something bigger. Unfortunately new ideas are always shiny and loveable and trying to figure out which to focus on is difficult.
I realize that part of the idea hinges on post-apocalyptic coolness. Since most mythologies have such stories, there must be something about the tales that the human brain just loves. It gets a plus mark for that. Unfortunately, the talking animals bring all sorts of problem to "marketability." People like to have a character that they can identify with, but the main characters are all animals. Yes, Jack is a fun character but he's not going to have human problems.
My two halves fling literary examples at each other, from Animal Farm (come on, we all hated it in eighth grade) to Watership Down to Redwall. In the end, I decide that I'm not going to devote a novel to it. Business person stamps it with "fail" and files it away. Artist pouts a lot. In August, however, Baen asked me if I could do a Christmas short story. The artist jumps up and shouts "What's more Christmas than talking animals?"
Business person glares at the artist and suggests tie-in to novels already written as gateway to those worlds. Artist points out that most of my projects have time constraints. For example, Elfhome ended with Tinker in the middle of September. To write a Christmas story for her, I would either have to do it prior to her meeting Windwolf, or risk driving myself insane trying to match up timelines of two future novels to one short story. Both artist and business person cringe at that idea.
Finally the artist plays the trump card. "If I write this short, I'll wear the shiny off." Business person knows that artist is much more reasonable once the shiny all wears off a new idea. They agree. A few days later, the rough draft of the story is done.