A Book's Beginnings

It happened again.

The first time was on March 6, 2009.  I woke up from a dream.  It was wonderful and terrible.  It consumed me as I lay in bed, thinking about it over and over.  I relived it as I drove in to work.  I pored over the details again and again while sitting at my desk.  During my lunch break I began writing.  I continued writing when I got home.  I wrote 10,000 words that day.  I wrote 10,000 words the next day as well.  And the next.  In fact, for 16 days I wrote 10,000 words every day.  On days 17 and 18 I wrote 5,000 words each.  That included editing and rewriting.  After 18 days I was staring at the completed first draft of a 170,000 word novel.

Over the next few months I refined it.  The book consisted of three parts - Before, College, and After.  It was the story of a forbidden romance, two young people, trying not to be together.  In the end...well, that's the thing.  In the end, I wrote a sequel.

Two months after the herculean task of writing 170,000 words in 18 days, I wrote a 125,000 word sequel.  I wrote the sequel in 6 weeks.  Since then, the series has expanded into 8 books.  I know!  All from a dream!

Well, last night it happened again.  I had another dream.  Same kind of deal.  I thought about it all morning.  Then I jumped up and wrote the outline and notes, the basic plot and storyline.  So here we go again.

The problem is I've already got plenty to do.  I just started rewriting a different book...again.  Plus I've got another book that I stopped halfway through the first draft to go back to a previous book.  I've actually got dozens of books in outline form that I can't find the time to go back and work on.  And here I am dreaming up yet another book.  But this new one is so edgy, so fast paced and full of romance and thriller scenes.  I can see it in my head, like a movie.  I can see the different scenes playing out.  I can see our main character consumed in a dangerous romance, going mad to get to the truth, and in the end, going too far.

See?  Got to you, too, didn't it?  I know!  That's what I mean.  Just like a good book that it's hard to put down, that's how I feel about writing these things.  I can't put the idea down, I have to get it down on paper, then I have to refine it.  But just as I'm almost done, another one comes along.  I figure if I finish one novel a year, I will be done with them all when I'm 90.  And that's only if I stop coming up with new ideas.