Recently I have been going through a phase of starting a lot of story ideas, only to find them quickly replaced with another story idea, then another more exciting one. It has got to the point now where I have forgotten about some really cool ideas that I came up with and failed to pursue them. In short, the WIP is not working, and that is because I suspect I have been using it in the wrong way.

My method so far has been to list each new story arc as an IDEA on my WIP page. Whenever I go back to this page I can then review my ideas, add to the ones that are of interest to me and adjust anything in there that I think might help progress the idea. Once an idea starts to get some legs, or arms (or in the case of some of my science fiction pieces, juicy tendrils) I will upgrade it to it’s own shiny new document. I have granted it the right to exist beyond an idea and into potential new story land.

This has worked for a while, particularly short stories. I have been able to create some work that I am really pleased with. The one thing that has been bugging me is that the document I have been calling a WIP is not really a WIP. It is not a work in progress, because it is not a single piece of work. It is lots of pieces of potential ideas (LOPOPI) No one has ever heard of a LOPOPI before but I am sure that other writers have had the same issue. It is basically to do with organisation.

I am going to try and organise my work differently and definitely rename the document I have been calling a WIP for so long. Perhaps Idea factory might be better. But what to do with all those ideas if they immediately become story documents by themselves? Well, I am going to work through them one by one, identify the oldest (and therefore the most mature?!) ideas and spend some time with them first, letting the younger ideas permeate, grow and feed for a while. I think there is a need to make a decision on each one though, either I am carrying on with it or moving it back to the idea factory for a redesign. Time to set some ground rules for the writing or be at the risk of never finishing anything. Let’s see what happens….