My Idea Cup Overfloweth!

I find it amazing how many writers’ websites, magazines and books offer hints and tricks to come up with ideas to write about. I simply can’t imagine not having ideas for books. In fact, that’s my problem – I have too many ideas and not enough time to get them all on paper.

As you may know (if you’ve been keeping up, which of course you have because you are SO fascinated with my life), I’ve got a pile of partially completed novel manuscripts tucked away in a very safe place. Okay, it’s where I store my rabbits’ food. Shut up, I don’t have much storage space in this little office. These half-tomes range from werewolf stories to alien invasions to historical novels. All these I feel compelled to return to one day, you know, when I find the time.

On top of this are the bevy of novel ideas bursting in my head. I am trying to shut these characters and story lines up so I can work on the novel I have already begun (and will complete. I will!). But believe you me, those characters keep rearing their oh-so-full-of-potential heads. Unfortunately, like the Hydra, if I cut off one of their heads, I just damn well know seven more heads are going to sprout from the bloody stump. So I let them dwell in there – my head is sort of like an airport boarding gate in that respect.

Then, I present Exhibit B (sorry, Exhibit A was the manuscript pile in the bunny food cabinet – this is why I write, not lawyerize). Exhibit B is a page in my notebook with a full list of non-fiction book ideas ranging from gardening to pasta making (oh, pasta, I do love you). This stupid list just got another member this week as I began plotting the Garden Make Over project that will occur this year (more on this next week).

But you write full time, why don’t you have time to write? It’s a rather Zen question, don’t you think? Well, because about half of my writing time has to go into “money making” writing (see New Year = New Focus for details), another portion of writing time goes into typing these fascinating words to you and into marketing efforts, and then what’s left is time to write Ye Olde Bookes.

My thought is, if I could stand to be poor, I’d be a much more prolific writer. But, because I’ve gotten kind of used to silly things like, oh say, eating, I need to make money…legally, of course.

This all makes me think back to the Renaissance and how artists had rich patrons so the artists could do their work. I think we need to bring this notion back. Really, where would Florence, Italy, be today without those Medicis?

But today, instead of patrons we have “sponsors” (aka “companies in need of advertising). Still, artists must adapt to the times so if anyone would like to sponsor me, I will gladly wear your company’s t-shirt, slap some logos on my bike when I go for rides, put up your signs in my veggie garden, hell, even decorate my cats with your company name. Tattoos are also an option we can explore (they must be cute and nowhere naughty).

I will, however, NOT wave giant signs on street corners. I have my pride, after all. Well, wait, how much would you pay for that kind of work?