A book in a box.

A new idea. I constantly have new ideas about how to write books, and then I write those books the same way, or whatever way is most convenient. Because, you know, writing the book is the most important thing.

The world is full of people who have important books they never write.

My current book started off strong and wrong. No recovering from that. I love it. It's probably my stupidest book and yet my favorite, but because of that I can look at it and see how it might have been even better.

(I should say, I'm leaning toward a complete rewrite to fix what I perceive to be a false start--I do think I can "recover" if I put in the effort.)

So the basic problem is: I discover a story in the the writing of the story. Simple as that.

I've never, ever written a book I've diagrammed in advance. I always found too much wrong with the story and never wrote it.

Maybe I'm saying, ignorance is bliss. Not knowing that the story won't quite work out is enough to keep me writing until I discover different.

So this new idea.

I try to come up with a concept, a premise for a book that I think is strong and needs some thought and development and research.

So I grab a box--a nice Diamond shipping box--and I put the tentative title on the box in black ink and then every time I have a thought, I write it down and throw it into the box. And then...someday...I'll know when I have enough material to proceed.

Silly idea, but I might try it.