Creative Detours: A Guest Post About How “Stepping Away” from Your WIP Can Improve Your YA Writing 

by Rusty Fisher-2011

I tend to start things I finish.............

If I start one of my free zombie poems, chances are if it’s any good at all I’m going to finish it, design a cover for it, edit it and post it. If I start a new vampire short story, I feel a kind of nagging anxiety until I write “The End” on the last page. 

Even with full-length novels, I generally don’t commit to starting page one until I think I have enough characters, plot, dialogue, ideas, twists and story line to get me all the way to page 301. And yet, I can also be pretty easily distracted. I can be smack dab in the middle of one book and, even if it’s going well, I can wake up at 4 a.m. with a great idea for the next one and, well… it’ll nag at me until I finally do something about it. And if it nags at me long enough, I tend to trust my instincts and put my current story on hold while I start the new one to at least “get it out of my system,” if you know what I mean. 

It’s not that I don’t like the “old” story anymore. It’s just that if I don’t at least get a few words down – or a few thousand – I’ll lose momentum and that story will move away before I can set it to paper. That’s kind of what happened while I was writing Ushers, Inc. Midway through, right when I was settling into a kind of rhythm and the end was starting to reveal itself, I got the idea for a book about two friends who go to rescue a third in some kind of haunted or protected or guarded hospital or prison or whatnot. And I remembered that, in a book I had written years ago one of the main characters was writing a straight up living dead book called “Panty Raid @ Zombie High.” I always liked that title, even though the idea for the book was just kind of a throwaway line – more like a running gag – in that earlier book. (Which I really need to dust off and look at again, come to think of it!) Suddenly, the new idea merged with the old title and I woke up one morning jazzed to start a new book called Panty Raid @ Zombie High. 

The only problem was that I was already in the middle, I mean dead middle, of Ushers, Inc. What to do? What to do? Well, because I know myself and the way I work, I kind of put Ushers, Inc. on ice for a few weeks and dug into starting the rough outline and first few chapters of Panty Raid. That was enough for me. Once I got it out of my head and onto paper, and established a few prime characters and the basic outline and tone of the piece, I could sleep at night and get back to finishing Ushers, Inc. All in all, the slight “creative detour” took less than a few weeks. I do that when I’m reading, too. I might be deep into a historical book about the Regan era or a study of the teen films of the 80s and then, one night just on a whim, reach for a cozy mystery about a pastry chef who solves crimes on the side. 

It’s not that the first book isn't good. I’m just not “feeling it” that night so… I reach for something I am feeling. Movies, too. Sometimes I go through a stretch on Netflix where it’s all cheesy horror movies; the cheesier the better. Then, suddenly midstream, I’ll switch gears to quality, Oscar-worthy documentaries. Right now it’s Asian crime cinema, but… who knows what’s next?  And that’s okay. I think we each have our own “creativity rhythms,” and while I definitely have to be disciplined in order to keep all the YA books and stories and poems coming, I also have to feel free to be excited and jazzed about what I’m writing “right now.” 

In short, I like to leave myself open to creative detours and see what’s waiting down that path least taken. And as long as I leave myself a trail of bread crumbs back to the original project, well, what’s to lose? Stepping away from Ushers, Inc. midstream really helped me get that “Panty Raid” monkey off my back so that, when I was satisfied I had that manuscript in a good spot, I could come back to Ushers with a clear head, my batteries recharged and finish the second half fairly quickly and enthusiastically as well as creatively. In a way, I think, it’s a good thing to step back from your WIP (work in progress) every so often and move on to something totally unrelated, only to come back to it refreshed and with a fresh eye and eager to try new things. It’s not clean, it’s not chronological, but these creative detours often work for me. So what about you? Can you ignore a good story? Can you put one down for another? And then pick up the first after a slight creative detour of your own? Or is that sacrilege to you? The comment field is open; discuss!!! 

Yours in YA,

Rusty

                                                                                   

When the streets are full of bloodsuckers, werewolves, zombies and ghouls, where will you turn? The cops don't know how to stop them, the Army's pretty much given up and even the Marines are stumped when their bullets and grenades fail to stop the onslaught.

Have no fear, Ushers, Inc. is here! Four high school movie ushers, who collectively have seen over 42,000 hours of B- and C-horror movies know just what to do.

Did you know copper pennies can stop a zombie in its tracks? Abby Cooper, Head Usher, does.

Did you know garlic paste is twice as effective on vampires as garlic cloves? Abby Cooper does.

Did you know werewolves are absolutely petrified of seeing a Hershey's kiss? Abby Cooper does.

The girls at Cypress Cove High school-especially Rich Witch Mia Hopwood-call Abby an uber-geek; the victims she rescues from zombies, werewolves and vampires just call her one thing: Hero!

But Abby and her fearless crew of movie ushers-slash-superheroes face more than just bloodsuckers and brain-biters. There's Wyatt Winters, for one; he's the hot new PR guru Ushers, Inc. has had to hire to handle all their press - and with his smoldering good looks and air of confidence, he's causing more than just tension between Abby and her old boy-crush-and fellow usher-Zach Nash.

And let's not forget the monsters, who aren't too happy about four geeky ushers beating their butts all over creation. Now the League of Associated Undead (LAD) is converging on Cypress Cove, determined to stop Ushers, Inc. once and for all.

When it's the monsters versus the monster hunters, who you gonna call?

Ushers, Inc., that's who!