So there I was, sitting in the room corner, minding my own business, when Summuse hit me!

Or, to be more precise, I was trying to get the next Familiar Generations book sketched out when the block I’d had on a very different book cleared, and I knew what I needed in order to write the story, and to finish roughing out the plot for that one. The good news is that there is a bit of overlap between the two, so some of the reading I need to do for the Scottish book applies to the Familiar Generations book. The bad news is that it is very little, and I have to force myself to set that aside and concentrate on the here-and-now book, since I have very limited writing time compared to last academic year.

I hit a bit of a mental wall on the Scottish book about 15K words in. Looking back, the problem is that I had the world, the character, the setting, but no driver and no rule for the magic system. Stuff happened, but the reason why the protagonist knew what was going on, and how to counter part of it, remained missing. I could only get so far before I bounced. After writing a later scene, the story stopped flowing, so I put it aside. That was in 2022. It has languished since then as I worked on other material.

The breakthrough came with a book about the Welsh traditions of Bardic poetry, and the source of inspiration. That, plus a very different archaeological work, kicked the old story into gear, and I now have a magic system, a driver for the action, and rules for how one kind of magic works int he world. I can see the setting and characters in my mind’s eye, which helps things (places I’ve been in northern England and western Scotland.) Now my mind wants to work on that book and get it done soonest.

The problem is time and concentration. I need both, and I have neither in enough quantity to lock into the story and work through all my archaeological and other notes in order to shape the tale. Instead, I am working on the Familiar Generations book, because it has a known market, a known world, and I need to get another one out in a reasonable time. Working in a well-known setting requires less concentration, a vital point when the writer is time and attention limited. It is more efficient at this point to focus on the known. Words-per-day will be higher for the given amount of space in the day allotted to writing fiction. Since writing helps pay some of the bills, this is a Good Thing.

Please note, I’m talking about a story that has been stuck for a while for reasons you are not certain about. Ideas also arrive at bad moments, such as in heavy traffic on an interstate highway. I kept repeating that one to myself over and over until I could safely get off the road and write it down. Some people can set their phones to record in the vehicle, and dictate to the phone (or a passenger). Walking on the treadmill is another good way to lure ideas into popping out of the mental bushes, at least for me. That sort of inspiration always arrives when I am in a less-than-great position to jot anything down. Murphy can wear the guise of a muse, alas.

So, how do you keep the breakthrough ideas going, so that you can come back to them? First, write them down. I jotted everything into my notes book, including the book references. That helps lock things into place, and I know precisely where I can find what I need when the time comes. Whatever you write down, be certain you can find it again later, be it in hand-written notes or a computer file.

Second, tell yourself that you will return to the stalled work. You can even go to that file or those notebook pages and make small notes, not adding words to the story per se, but commenting here and there as appropriate with what you found and where you want to go. Add the material to your story guide, if you have one*. You are working on the story, and that should assuage your writer-brain enough to let you return to the primary work in progress.

You might have other techniques that you use. If so, great! There’s a feeling of relief when something unlocks and the words start to flow, at least for me. When everything clicks, and words flow, life is good. I’m happy, readers are happy, and eventually the utility company is happy.

*This was part of my problem. I wrote a huge chunk without taking notes at the time, and have to go back and reconstruct which plant had which name, and what lore each piece drew from. I also need to add my reference texts, because that’s how I roll.