Said "Here ya' go, honey."

"Don't spend it all in, what am I talking about?...Fucket."

Now that's what I'm talkin' about!

For those of you who write long format fiction (say novella and beyond), whether fanfic or original, how many stories do you have in your mental bank ahead of the one you're currently working on?

Here's the contents of my brain's back burner:

1. The one about the girl who runs away from home disguised as a boy and ends up pressed into the Royal Navy circa 1800. I've got a very rough idea of the plot and a strong sense of the protagonists and some of the supporting characters. It'll come together as soon as I start researching it.

2. The time travel baseball story. I know how it starts and how it'll end, with some ideas for incidents along the way.

3. My Trail of Tears story. I know who the protagonists are, and how it starts, and that it'll have to be darker than anything I've attempted yet.

4. My Peninsular War werewolf story. I've been toying with the idea of doing a Peninsular War paranormal or two ever since I joked about changing Jack from the wip into a werewolf so I could pitch to Anna Genoese at Emerald City Writers Conference last year, but it just turned into a story on me a few days ago. I got a image in my mind for the opening scene where the hero gets bitten, and I know the heroine's name is Isabel and she has black hair. That's all. I don't even know if Isabel is Spanish or English yet. But somehow I know it's going to turn into a proper 100K novel on me in due course.

And that's not counting a couple of half-born worlds for epic fantasy (which I still want to attempt one of these days), the idea that if I really needed to I could probably do a short story for an anthology with supporting characters from the wip, and a cluster of very, very embryonic ideas--mostly either interesting characters who haven't told me their stories yet, or fascinating settings/historical incidents that I haven't pegged a character or a plot to yet.

This makes me want to write faster, because I hate that at the rate I write now, it'll be 2009 before I've finished the four listed. But OTOH there's some tiny paranoid part of me that wonders, "What if that's it? What if I run out of ideas?"

Why would you run out of ideas? They aren't in some sort of bank account that you can overdraw; so long as you're alive and functional, things happen to you, and become links to things that have happened to other people.

And then you have a story.

I don't know...I worry about it because I write from life, mostly, and the interesting things about my life seem both 1. receding in the past and 2. limited in the first place.However: I want a series, although saying my character has legs feels a little sick, even for me.

I'd like to write a book about work in America I've got a very dark romantic farce playing out in my life right now...if I ever found an ending? Great story, for the right audience(not the people that cry at "The Notebook")

Still feel bad about not having the skills for Pornathology, too. Heh...that list is very "genre? We don't need no stinking genre!" I doubt seriously I'll be able to ever do all those things, much less work on "The Wire", but you know, aim high, right?

I'm with erika. All the interesting stuff in my life is long over and fading fast into "bullshit territory" rather than honest memory. Doesn't mean I'm going to quit trying, though.

Well, I don't really think I'll run out of ideas. But the way an idea comes together for me has a certain bolt-from-the-blue feel to it. It's not something I've been able to force so far. E.g., I have a character who I really think deserves a story--I can picture him very clearly, and he has leading man written all over him. He's personable, smart, brave, and he's going to live through interesting times and have lots of adventures in the process. But a story for him to star in hasn't come to me yet. He has more or less important roles in stories starring several of his family members, but that's not the same. And on the opposite side, there are events in history I'd love to frame a story around, but the characters just haven't come to life for me yet.

So, since I don't seem to control those "Aha!" moments where character, setting, and the beginnings of a plot mate, I don't know that I can guarantee that they'll keep happening at least once or twice a year.

I'm sure they'll keep happening, Susan. That's what happens to me. So, I write something down. Even if all it's comrised of if the description of the character, or a quick vignette of something I imagine happening. Maybe they'll get used, maybe they won't. At least it's down on paper, or pixels, where I can get at it later.

There are no guarantees. And that being so, what's the point in worrying about it?

Honestly, you're alive, shit happens, you distill.

And why does the impetus have to be the "interesting" stuff? You stop at restaurant on the road to somewhere, and overhear some byplay between the waitress and a trucker, and there's an entire story seed, right there.