Lightning Struck My Brain!

Several weeks ago (December 23rd, to be exact—I just looked up the date in my handy dandy Molskine idea notebook :-)), I had this random idea for a story concept I thought was pretty intriguing. I actually have no idea what triggered it. As you may have gathered from my previous post, I've been experiencing some pretty hefty creative BLOCK lately, and was beginning to despair of ever writing anything again. But this past week I was really wanting to WRITE something, and thought maybe I should dabble in some short stories.

So Thursday afternoon I took notebook and pen to White August Tea to brainstorm on three different ideas I'd had semi-recently, including the one from December 23rd. I jotted down the three ideas. I wrote a paragraph on one of them, turned the page, and proceeded to do the same with the December 23rd Idea. I wrote a paragraph, and then another paragraph, and pretty soon I'd written several pages and had three-quarters of a plot and the definite feeling that this was Absolutely Not a short story. It was a novel. I was hearing character voices in my head, seeing their surroundings, getting scene ideas, discovering back story, and so on and so on and so on. Basically ideas were gushing out of my brain, Niagara Falls-style. By Friday I'd pretty much figured out what happens in the end, and even decided that there might be sequels (which is a huge tip-off that I'm not planning on killing anyone important, haha).

Friday evening I started Snowflaking, after briefly considering plunging head-first into writing the novel sans outline. As of right now, late Sunday afternoon, I'm halfway through Step Five of the Snowflake, with only three and a half steps left to go. The story is still exciting me, and ideas are still pouring out of my brain, and I am totally going to plunge into writing the first draft as soon as I finish my outline. I am so, so, so, SO excited!

The novel has a title (which literally popped into my head thirty seconds after jotting down the original brainstorming paragraph) that I'm not going to share just yet, and I'm not telling you what the idea is, either (sorry; I will as I get further along in the writing process, promise :-)), so I'll just leave it at: a sort-of sci-fi-fantasy-dystopian-possibly-steampunk-young-adult-romance novel. Don't worry. I won't put that in the query letter. :-) :-)

Excited to be excited again,

Joanna