Kitchen Sink Syndrome

A little while back, I was thinking about an old writing project, with the working title of "Random High Fantasy", so I went and dug it back out... I then spent a solid four hours re-reading it, tweaking some of the original sections, adding some new sections, and generally wondering why I'd ever abandoned it in the first place. So now I guess I know what my next project will be once I finish the Dark Fantasy project that I'm working on currently. 

And, actually, I know exactly why I abandoned it in the first place. It's because midway into it I got one of those Really Neat Ideas and started trying to bend the existing story to incorporate it, and the existing story didn't have that much flex. Really Neat Idea needs to be the basis for a sequel, not Kitchen-Sinked into this project. Kitchen-sunk? Whatever. Certainly sunk my first attempt.

Looking back at my attempts at actually finishing a book-length project, I think that Kitchen Sink Syndrome is actually one of my big stumbling blocks. I'll be working on something, and I'll get a neat new idea, and I'll try to work it in... and the next thing you know, I have too many new ideas and can't figure out how to work them all in (which was what happened to the last Dark Fantasy project) or I'm trying to squeeze in something that just doesn't fit (e.g. Random High Fantasy) or I actually do just cram them all in there and wind up with a bloated, sprawling fantasy adventure that has a lot of neat stuff but has really lost its focus as a story (for example, the one book-length project I actually did finish, and for which this blog is named). 

Honestly, if there's one big issue that I need to work on in my writing, it's that. I've gotten a little better about it -- both recognizing when I'm doing it, and then not doing it -- but it's still something I need to work on. And the big thing that helps is to remember that I can take a break, write the new idea out, maybe even put down a scene or two to flesh it out and nail it down... and then promise it that it will get its own home someday, and go back to what I was doing. 

Feels weird to be figuring that out after this many years spent writing, but I guess that's true of any sort of artistic creation: there's always more to learn, and a lot of it is going to be learning about yourself as much as your craft.