What's Next?

[Peg Herring]

Creativity, like love, life, and the circulatory system, is a river. It flows where it likes, sweeping with it everything in its path when it is at its strongest. It never fails that when I have a great idea for a story, I have two, sometimes three, and that can be hard to handle. On which one should I spend the time and energy that it takes to make an idea into a finished project?

I imagine Lewis and Clark, coming to a fork in some river and wondering which one to take. Will it lead to a dead end, or will it get them where they're going? They ask Sacajawea, and she gives her best advice, but she really doesn't know either. They study the landscape, the sky, and the horizon, but nothing gives them a solid answer. They're going into uncharted territory, and they simply have to take a try at it and see where it leads.

Do I write a sequel to a story that's been accepted by an agent? What if it doesn't sell? Do I try to capture that quirky plot that may or may not work as a novel? Or do I go with what's obviously selling this year, cranking it out even though my heart isn't in it? There is that serious novel that's been in the back of my mind for years. Is it time for that one to take center stage?

I think creative minds always have multiple possibilities for what to do next. The problem is settling on one and seeing it through. Successful writers like Michener and Dickens had ideas that never became books, and I'm sure Edison had sketches that never became inventions. And who can even imagine what Leonardo had left over in his workshop? I guess I can be thankful, for I'm certainly no Leonardo. I have to let creativity have its way, and trust that the story that should be written will be.