A plague of ideas

I am now at the stage of my wip that ideas for other unrelated novels are beginning to plague me. These are novels that will never ever get written. I suspect my muse like to drag them up to torment me. But I have to be ruthless and follow my current ideas through. One through being faithful to one wip, do I get anything written. However, it doesn't stop from thinking about other things.

For example, today I was leafing through a guidebook on Malta and came across the sentence that Napoleon had sought to have all the papers of the Order of St John burnt. Why? And why did the Knights disobey the order? What were the consequences? Then there is the bit in the latest Smithsonian about Americans in Prague and glass. This reminds me of the other article some months about the efforts to read old codex books and the information contained on them.

In other words, my muse is attempting to distract me from 1813 and the North East. Actually I am enjoying writing this story and think it will be good once it is finished. At the moment, it is a POS as Hemingway would say.

The Smithsonian had a wonderful article about Hemingway in its latest issue and his time in Cuba. He was apparently ruthless about his work, making sure his words were done. He wrote either on a typewriter or longhand.If all was well, he would be quite chatty. Otherwise, he would simply bark out the word count to his secretary. He also enjoyed playing with words.

The Smithsonian magazine is a treasure of ideas for a novelist. I am very lucky that my sister sends it to me for my birthday every year. Generally, my muse can find at least one article to glam on to...even if the idea will never be written. And that can kickstart the muse in other directions.