Such thoughts occur to me almost daily. The problem is, I have such a catologue of ideas, that I am sure I will never get to all of them. I have whole lists of dialogue quotes, titles of books and storyline ideas that I have put down on paper with the express intention of writing them into full manuscripts one day. Unfortunately, there are so many books to be written from this list alone that I know I will never be able to actually write them all out.
What does one do then? Well, in my case, I go through them. I look and see what can be combined into one work, what I would never be able to write properly, and thus, discard and what is worth working on as an individual thought process. Living in the family I live in, with the crazy and colorful characters that are a daily part of my life, I draw most of my inspiration from them when it comes to characters. Truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction, and I see no reason to fix what isn't broken.
I received an email from a wonderful young man the other day, asking me how to go about writing his first book. My advice to him, and to all budding young writers, is write what you know, and add a little flair while your at it. I would love to be able to write Legal Thrillers in the tradition of my idol, Mr. John Grisham, however, I do not know the legal world enough to be able to do so. I know enough to write a good murder mystery, but not nearly enough to go to a Time To Kill level. I will leave that to Mr. Grisham, and I will stick with what I know.
The second thing is, do not stop writing. Do not let writer's block stop you. Write anyway. You are not going to write a manuscript that is print worthy the first time out. It requires many rewrites and loads of editing. It i