Two days ago all of the loose ends and thoughts I have regarding a shelved novel idea came together in one brilliant moment. Unfortunately, everything came together at the worst possible time. I'm neck deep in a summer research project and dissertation prospectus. My solution has been to sacrifice four hours of sleep a night and get everything down on paper: Outline, character bios, the beginnings of a new rough draft, etc. I'm holding up so far but can't keep this pace up beyond the weekend. Has this every happened to anybody else? How have you dealt with it?
I'm jealous :/ Drink coffee and jot down the main points of your ideas. Write just the crucial plot and character ideas because the rest will come back to you when you read it later. I wouldn't write an entire draft, that's too much unless you can handle it without going crazy.
Not the entire first draft. No way I could pull that off. Good advice, though. You're right, it will come back when I read it, but even so, I want to get as much down on paper (notes, dialogue etc) as possible just in case
If you put in four hours a day, at the sort of breakneck pace you're describing you'd probably get maybe 3000, 4000 words a day. Let's say 3000. And let's take the average novel size to be 200,000 words. In slightly over two months the first draft should be done. So it can be done.
Yes, and over a much longer period of time. The first step is to understand that now that you have gotten it to all come together in your mind, you are not going to lose it, so don't feel you have to rush. I don't know what your normal sleep patterns are like, but in any event, sacrificing 4 hours per night is a huge chunk that will catch up with you in a hurry. Slow down, because you are more likely to miss something by rushing than lose something by taking longer. Your research project and dissertation prospectus are short term issues. Find a work arrangement that works for you and allows you to make satisfactory progress, while not running you into the ground. And congratulations on it all coming together. Nothing like that feeling of triumph.
I keep a notebook in which I write various short stories, essays and notes. I keep the titles and TOC organized, which helps me when I come back to know what I was writing and why. So, for anything written in the service of my novel (still in pre-writing stage, for anyone that cares to know), I title the entry as follows: Notes for: [TITLE OF AWARD-WINNING NOVEL] Maybe this will help you.
