Chapter 4: An Idea!

I was four chapters in, and I still had almost no idea of what I was going to write about.

But having almost no idea is like being almost pregnant. The idea was there. I’d conceived something, but I just didn’t quite know what I had conceived.

“Thank you for conceiving me,” said the idea. It was precocious and had developed the power of speech. What I had conceived was becoming an idea.

“You’re quite welcome,” I answered.

“Do you know what I am?” Asked the young idea. “I seem rather vague.”

Then suddenly I realized what I’d conceived. It was brilliant!

“You’re a great idea!” I said, “A brilliant one.”

“I am?” The idea asked.

“I am!” The idea said, as it realized what it was.

“You’re going to star in a chapter of your own,” I said. “The next one.”

A Talking Idea?

“A talking idea?” Asks my inner critic, rhetorically

“This one talks,” I say.

“And you had a talking idea?” Asks my inner critic, re-torically. “That’s the whole chapter?”

“It’s also about how the idea came to be the one in the metanovel,” I answer. “Not just that I just had it.”

“And that’s it?” Asks my inner critic one more time. “That’s the whole chapter?”

“Pretty much,” I say. “I like it. I think that it creates suspense. Narrative tension. Extra words. The readers are probably wondering ‘What’s the idea?’”

“If there are any readers,” says my inner critic.

I’m reading, a reader thought. And I am wondering ‘What’s the idea?’