Book Brain

It was quite a relief to find that I'm not the only one who can't seem to deal with graphic novels. I was feeling so bad about that because I have friends who write them, and then there's the TV show "extra seasons" thing, where I would prefer to have a regular novel. Though I must admit, the Pushing Daisies world would lose something without the visual element.

I have a bad case of Book Brain -- but not the whirling storm of ideas I can't capture fast enough kind. This is dangerously close to writer's block. I made one little change in the backstory -- something that doesn't even happen in the book itself -- and that ended up changing the entire plot for the last part of the book because it changed what was really going on and it changed everyone's motivations. I don't yet know for sure if that change was right, after all, but I won't know until I explore that path for a while.

I'm trying to remember which character this was -- possibly the Doctor on Doctor Who or maybe Rose when she had the burst of Tardis energy -- but I recall seeing or reading something about a character seeing not only the past and future, but also the possible pasts and futures, the alternatives to what actually happened, all existing simultaneously. That's kind of what I feel like at the moment. I'm seeing something like a branching flow chart of events, so that multiple possible futures all exist simultaneously and side-by-side, and I'm trying to figure out which makes for the best story. That is why my brain is exploding.

As a result of the Book Brain, I'm woefully short on blog topics, so here's your chance -- ask a question or suggest a topic about writing, the publishing industry, books, me, my books, my characters, cooking, TV, ballet, movies, geekery, travel, whatever. I can probably write something to a prompt, but my idea generator is currently running on overdrive elsewhere and is not available for blog topics.

And now to the store before I have a serious tea crisis.