I be the Idea Lady

For my first actual mash-up monday post, I figured it seemed appropriate enough to post about ideas.  All of our books, our novels and poems and short stories, all come from a little idea.  Those, in a sense, are our real babies.  After that, it is us being the adoring parents as we watch our babies grow and change into something we may have never even expected.

My writing den is torn apart right now.  I know, horrible right?  I spent all that time perfecting it and making it into a space that truly inspires me... then they start construction on our apartment.  It was supposed to just be replacing the windows and deck.  Now the project, a month later, is still going strong.  All of the siding is off of the building, they have dug down to the retaining wall and torn it up, and everything is covered in plastic giving us the look that we are either being fumigated or ET was found once again.  And still no new windows... To boot, we have had to remove everything that hung on any of our outside walls (They hammer so hard on the walls all day every day that in our room a screw head has even popped through.)  So, my walls are empty and white and horrible.  I hate it.  My whole apartment looks like a mental institute... and I feel crazy inside.

That may be a good reason why I just haven't been editing lately.  Hmm... can I blame it on them?

Stacked on my table is everything that once hung on the walls in this here den.  The other night I was sifting through it, making sure nothing has broken.  On one shelf I keep all of my little idea books.  Well, I snatched one out to jot my newest idea in (I know... like I need a new one right?  I need to finish everything I have first!  This new one is cool though...) and then sat back to look at all of my books.

Including PN, at this moment in time, there are eight books staring back at me.  I have yet to make one for the potential of book two for PN... that's a post for another time.  Some of the ideas are just a single jot in the booklet.  Others are pages of thoughts, random dialogue I have thought of, characters I will love, places I will create.  I actually had fun flipping through the pages, seeing all these thoughts that were born in my head scribbled before my eyes.

Then I got sad.  There just are not enough hours in the day, days in the month, months in the year.  I started brainstorming for PN this time last year, and am now almost done with it.  So, if I say a year per book... that's seven more years before I even finish these babies I already have.  Who's to tell if more will be born!

That's good and bad.  I have something to do for seven years.  But at the same time, I sit here and squirm, just wanting to see my books grow up and "be" right now.  I would love for this to be my full time gig.  To have hubby home with the kiddos as I disappear into my true writing den and type like a madwoman.  Who knows, life might allow that, someday.  For now, I sit in my torn apart dining room/writing den and allow the creation to happen when diapers don't need changing and hungry tummies are settled.  And every so often, an idea creeps into my mind, tickles my thoughts, then finds itself settled in a booklet on my shelf alongside my other to-be creations.

Like my sister in law said... if something happens and I come to find out that I just am not a writer, I could make a mean career out of being an idea lady.  Which would be cool and all... but hey, I just gotta write.

How about you?  Do you have stacks of idea babies?  Do you just focus on one and never let your mind trail to the others?  Or are you the writer who bounces between a few, never able to let your love and obsession settle with just one at a time?  Do share!

(Total side note not related but still awesome:  Congrats to Trisha for hitting 200 followers!  Exciting!!  Though now I see you have gained even more... go you go!  Trisha is holding a contest on her page, in celebrations of being stalked so awesomely well.  Go on over and check it out here!)