Some of my writer friends have zillions of ideas, more than they could write about in a lifetime. I heard a talk from one children's book author years ago, who said he wrote 200 picture books a year - and (of course) only succeeded in publishing three or four of them (itself a most impressive feat). But for him, ideas were everywhere, springing up from the soil, tumbling down from the sky, a Niagara of ideas cascading through his life every single day.
I am not like that. (Imagine photo of one tiny drop of water dripping from the world's slowest faucet.)
It takes a long time for me to get a book idea. I have NO extra book ideas lying around, languishing for want of my attention. For me, a book idea is a rare and wondrous thing.
But I got one last week. It just popped into my head during a brainstorming session with my sweetheart, and there it was, an actual, bona fide, EXCITING (at least to me) book idea.
No, I'm not going to share it here. It's too new, too fragile, to speak aloud at this embryonic stage. But I'm obsessed with it. I spend my hour-a-day of writing time covering pages with handwritten notes about it. I Google things that have to do with it on my phone. I sat in church last Sunday, and something in the sermon resonated with the idea, so I had to grab the church bulletin and write it down.
It feels so wonderful to have a new book idea!!
Still in writer's hell awaiting word on the book manuscript I finished two months ago, I was too paralyzed with mingled anticipation and dread even to try groping toward writing something new. Despite my cheerfully claiming in this blog space that I was doing that, I was just lying to myself, or, more kindly put, pretending to myself. I avoided my beloved writing nook, tucked under the eaves in our darling cottage, because I wasn't worthy of a writing nook if I wasn't actually writing. (Thing I saw on Facebook: "You don't have to write every day to be a writer. You just have to feel guilty every day that you aren't writing.") Instead of writing, I got up freakishly early as usual and did New York Times puzzles on my laptop in the dark. How pitiful!
But now, I am back in the nook, with the light on, scribbling, dreaming, drinking tea from my special writing teapot, burning my special Betsy-Tacy writing candles.
Right this moment, I am NOT thinking about the last book and what its fate will be. I have a NEW IDEA! Hooray for a NEW IDEA! Writing gods, thank you!
And please, writing gods, help me be worthy of it.
