eddyfate

"Where do you get your ideas from?"

It's actually not a question I get a whole lot anymore. Maybe it's because people are starting to realize that it's become the most cliche thing you can say to a writer, or maybe it's because I tend to be known for working on licensed or collaborative products, and people assume I just don't have any ideas of my own. Anyhow, while I don't get questioned about it a lot, people certainly still seem confused by my relationship with the writing process.

As an example, last week I was at a LARP, but spent nearly two hours out of the game. Instead, I was sequestered in the tiny kitchen of the game site, scribbling ideas for a new RPG system furiously in my notebook and testing them out with playing cards and character sheets scratched out on the back of my own. Last night I sat down to just jot down a few ideas, and next thing I knew it was 1 in the morning, and the rest of my family was already off in bed.

I can see why people used to think that creativity came from a spirit or demon -- there are a lot of times when I feel an idea possesses me rather than gets created by me. Of course, it's still a lot of really hard work to get that idea from something rattling around in my head to something that can be seen, but sometimes the idea just sits in the front of my brain and will just poke at me until I sit the fuck down and do something about it. The interesting part is that the more I work on it, the more that other projects jump up and demand to be worked on as well. And when I get into a steady rhythm of writing daily, I find it harder and harder not to write daily. (This is why the first piece of writing advice you'll probably ever get is "Write every day.")

Let me give you a peek into the various projects I've been working on over the past few weeks. Note that this is all outside of my work writing:

• An RPG system based around teams of criminals put together for heists and con jobs
• Another RPG system (this time for superheroes) that's a mash-up between Fudge and 4C (which started as just some house rules for a potential Nextwave campaign)
• A superhero universe I've kicked around for years that might be part of said RPG, or might be used somewhere else
• Whitechapel episodes and promotion
• "Gloomy Sunday," the short story for the Close Encounters of the Urban Kind anthology
• More brainstorming for Katrina Night, my comedic vampire bad girl fiction (which, if I lose my damned mind, I might use for NaNoWriMo this year)
• A space opera universe (featuring the crew of the HCSS Terrifying Disappointment) that I briefly considered as an audio drama

Odds are pretty good that only a couple of these will actually see the light of day -- some of these are old projects that have been sitting on my hard drive for years, and there's easily another dozen or two projects to keep them company. But on the other hand, Whitechapel was one of those projects, and it's finally out and getting people excited, so maybe some day a few of these will be out in the open.

Whatever. The point is, my muse is trying to kill me. But what a way to go.