Saturday, December 27, 2008

Restraint

No, dears, not the kind of restraints you'd expect of me. No rope, leather, or metal. This time, I'm thinking of mental restraint. It's something I'm going to have to get used to if I'm going to work with a co-author.

I so used to taking story ideas and mulling them over in my own weird leapfrog tangential fashion that as Helen and I lobbed killer plot bunnies of doom at each other, I started building Frankenbunny with bits and pieces of the ones that splatted and stuck to the wall - so to speak. (If you're getting grotesque mental pictures of spaghetti sticking to the wall, but it doesn't look quite like spaghetti, and there's some red sauce involved, I apologize. No real plot bunnies were harmed, or disinterred and used for parts in my laboratory.*)

Correct me if I'm wrong, but when you're working with someone, it's not quite cricket to grab the parts that look appetizing (sorry) and run off chuckling with fiendish glee. She's busy. I'm busy. We won't be free to pursue this until March. So I keep having to tell myself to have some mental restraint and not take off running with the story, because we have to develop this together. And I don't want to get to emotionally invested in my ideas before I know hers.

But it's hard. Some of those plot bunnies are giving me the come hither look. Even worse, they're beginning to seep into my dreams.





* as far as you know

3 comments:

Helen said...

Well, we could always write alternating stories with separate characters set in the same universe, eventually working them to some common point };) I'm also chomping at the bit to giddyup and go, but I know I have at least one book to get out of the way before I do. I suggest we discuss strategies that will fulfill that itch to hunt down plot bunnies and eat them ALIVE!!!

Kathleen Bradean said...

STOP IT!

Now I'm getting plot bunnies about plot bunnies.

Must. Find. Something. Else. To. Write.

I need the distraction.

Helen said...

I dunno, those plot bunnies look pretty vicious. They might tie you down and torment you if you don't start running quick! };D