Some days I feel like I may have a touch of ADD. I just cannot stay on track with anything. I swear, half hour sitcoms were invented for me, because I can't concentrate on anything for longer than 20 minutes.
(To demonstrate, I just had to stop writing this blog in order to IM my friend a picture of the truly unfortunate bangs that Courteney Cox sported in SCREAM 3. Seriously sad. Who did that to that poor woman?
And, can we just talk about the fact that everyone and their mother was in SCREAM 3? Patrick Dempsey! Parker Posey! Carrie Fisher! Scott Foley! Jenny McCarthy! Patrick Warburton! Freakin' Jay and Silent Bob!)
I'm sorry, what was I saying? Oh, yeah. Attention span of a gnat. Well. Think I proved my point on that one.
Unfortunately, the same thing can happen while writing. You're plowing along on one story and it's going B-E-A-utifully. Things are flowing, banter is witty, characters are arching and then it just...stops. Maybe you write yourself into a corner. Maybe you're faced head on with a scene you don't really want to write. But suddenly, it's not so new and shiny anymore.
But, wait, what's that? Why it's a NEW idea! A pretty, fresh idea full of limitless potential. It's so tempting to give up on the hard thing and just start writing the new story. After all, new is always better, right?
Wrong.
Hey, new is great. But, hey, I'm a vintage girl at heart. There are some beautiful treasures out there, just waiting to be rehabilitated. So, take notes on that new idea. It may turn out to be a good one. Just don't give up on the story at hand. No matter what your attention span may be, that story was new once too.
