The Stories that Need to be Written

This week, as I was heading to my computer with the last piece of information I needed to plan for the fall, an idea for a story sideswipes me mid-step. It’s funny, because the idea for the story wasn’t all that surprising. It’s a story that speaks to a subject I’ve grappled with for much of my adolescent/adult life, so it’s always been hanging out, steeping in the back of mind. The surprising part was the timing. It’s a story I hadn’t planned to sit down and plot out for quite a few years.

This story will require a lot of research because it’s based on a subject that I do not have a thorough foundational knowledge of. Though that’s not why it’s on the back burner. It’s also something that will cause some fallout and backlash. That is also not the reason I’ve held off writing it. It will be written, fallout and backlash be damned. Really, it’s because I have these other stories that are in construction that I desperately want to finish first. But this story has launched itself from quietly simmering to a steady whistling on the back burner, demanding to be taken care of.

So, I will have to decide as I finalize my goals for my second quarter, if this story will be what I work with for NaNoWriMo. If it is, I’ve got quite a bit of work to do before November 😳

What do you do with a story idea that you weren’t planning to write? Do you wait or jump on writing it? Also, and maybe even more importantly, what do you do with a story idea that might cause you backlash? I really am curious.

Happy Writing!