Plot Bunnies Aren’t Much Fun

There is a strange inverse ratio–the more responsibilities I do, the more I get inspired to do my creative projects. In the middle of getting a class together, I can suddenly realize, “Oh! Fatebane can realize that Nazar has been the traitor all along!” Meanwhile, there’s a video that needs to get done, and a presentation that needs to be done tomorrow. What to do?!

Of course, I can do nothing about it, and because of that the idea festers in my brain… until I realize it was a stupid idea, or I write it down somewhere. The term for this I learned from NaNoWriMo is “plot bunnies.” Those plot ideas that sit in your head, and if you don’t let them out, they start multiplying, until you can think about nothing else. The best thing to do is to write it down and forget it, so you can come back to a later. Much like Google searches; you’ll be watching a film and suddenly think, “What was the Battle of Ashdown?” (Don’t worry, I did the work for you – click the link.)

This could just be procrastination on a grand scale, but I have the best ideas when I have no time to explore them. You would think when I’m bored, my mind would be desperately trying to come up with a story to entertain me, but no, I’m least likely to write when I have nothing else to do.

At present, I have a my regular job which has two projects I’m balancing between. My wife needs my input with the mortgage refi, the kids occasionally need my attention about Hamilton, the new version of DuckTales (Whoo-oo!) and insert current obsession here. Then comes my extra-curriculars: there’s my D&D campaign on Monday nights, the fan club newsletter that I’m responsible for that’s now two weeks past the drop-dead date for submissions, the unpublished book I’m trying to edit for my new press, expanding my exposure in social media, and then my current novel (20,000 words and climbing, yeah!).

Seriously?

Something’s got to give, right? Thankfully, I’m running a published adventure in D&D, so I don’t have to worry about that until I’m running it. “I promise, I’ll work on the newsletter tomorrow!” I tell myself. I haven’t started it yet. Ick. I haven’t touched my finished novel since last week, and thankfully, my social media expansion only takes between 30-60 minutes a day. But the new novel? The one I can’t stand? Never better… I’m also back on target word count!”

Of course, that’s not counting writing this blog… which I do to get me in the mood for writing my novel. So what do you think? Do you have the same inverse problem or does any work get in the way of sitting down and writing? Put your issues in the comments below!