The "Oooh, Shiny!" problem

[donutsweeper]

I'm really hoping that I'm not the only one with this problem...

*Bam* An idea for a story hits from out of the blue!  Oooh, it's so shiny and wonderful so you scrabble off and feverishly work on it, but you're only partially through it when... *Bam*  Ooh look, over there, that idea is so shiny too!  So idea number one is put aside while shiny new idea number two takes over.  Halfway through that one... *Bam*  Look!  In the sky, shiny idea number three!!!!

and so on and so on....

Occassionally one of the lovely little shinies actually is the ending to a previous one and, wonder of wonders, you've actually managed to finish something, but more often than not all you've got is seventeen different once shiny half finished stories on your hard drive.

Please tell me I'm not insane and this sort of thing happens to other people!

Comments

[fandom-me.livejournal.com]

That definitely happens to me. A lot. It's annoying and frustrates me, and I don't know how to tell you to resolve the issue. My 'solution' is usually just refusing to let myself write the story until I've finished what I've already started, but that really doesn't work for everyone. I also do some (a lot ) of short fic to capture feelings/ideas so not everthing comes with a 5K word count or huge investment of time.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Actually, just knowing it's not just me that has this problem really helps. :) There are just so many shiny ideas out there....

[travels-in-time.livejournal.com]

You're not insane. (Well...at least not because of that. :D) And you're definitely not the only one!

That's why I was considering the Finish-a-Thon.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

So you think I'm insane for other reasons...... *g*

and "Hooray!" for the finish-a-thon, which might actually make me figure out how to END A BLOODY FIC sometime this century!

[travels-in-time.livejournal.com]

Well, I was wondering if we ought to wait until the beginning of the year. This month there's the Halloween party, and next month is Nanowrimo, and then it seems like a surprising number of people on my flist don't really need any assistance to get things done. So I don't know. Maybe it's just me and you. :)

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

Well, I was wondering if we ought to wait until the beginning of the year.

by then I'll probably have ten new shiny ficbits .... so it'd still be useful

Maybe it's just me and you. :)

At least I'm in good company then!

[unfeathered]

It does happen to me, but I'm fairly disciplined and unless the new idea is short, I just set it to once side for the moment.

I also don't seem to get so many different ideas as most people, so it's not such a problem. Most of my ideas are for later on in whichever fic I'm writing.

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

discipline... yeah... I've heard of that!

[aeron-lanart.livejournal.com]

I often get ideas for later in a fic before I've got to a place where I can use them. What I do at that point is write the scene, and leave it there at the end in case it can be used. That happened about 3 times in the last big fic I wrote (in 36 parts); for instance part of the last chapter was written before I'd got to part 30 and knew how I was going to get there (the bit where Methos and Jack say goodbye, with the 'Love life; don't just live it' comment).

If it's just a one-scene idea or a piece of dialogue then often it's worth drabbling it or doing a ficlet to get it out of your system so you can concentrate on your main fic baby and then return to it when you've the time to spend.

Unfortunately, I think ideas have the same fascination for fanficcers that shiny things do for magpies... so no You Are Not Alone!

[donutsweeper.livejournal.com]

oooh, I've done that too- just written down the scene and hoped to figure out a way to use it later. I'm so glad others are having the problem too!