For the last month I've had story ideas popping up at me like gophers from the ground. None of my usual inhibitions about writing them, either: down they go either on paper or into the computer scribble-scribble tap-tap. (I do not underestimate the effect of going back to paper. Longhand really does use a different part of the brain.) Currently I have three fics in the works, two more nittering at me to be written, mental notes towards a couple of others, and an eighth in a perpetual state of WIP. This usually happens when a series or whatever comes to occupy an excessive portion of one's time, and it's generally bliss. At last I'm one of these people who can dash off multiple fics, more than one every three months, even if I'm still not at the level of those who seem to fic as easily as breathing. (I will never be one of those who fic *well* as easily as breathing, but those can be counted on the fingers of a badly mutilated right hand.)
There is however a downside to my recent vast productivity. No pain no gain. Nothing I've written this year satisfies me at all. "Easy, vulgar and therefore..." Retreads. Same themes repeated. Same ideas recurring. Same vocabulary forever and ever. Been there and done that, many a time and oft.
Maybe I should stick to telling myself stories before falling asleep. Repetition and familiarity are virtues in that kind of story, and it's gone by morning. It's not there every time I open up Word, sitting lumpishly on the screen in all its utter unlovely lack of inspiration.
