On Monday, I'm running the first chapter of Percival Gynt and the Conspiracy of Days, the sci-fi fantasy mystery quest novel that I'm currently about 50 pages into, and which looks like it will probably run about 500 pages in first draft.

So I have a few different goals for July, some of which I discussed earlier this week. One is to write every day (though not always here). I'd like to make some more headway with the novel, and hopefully decide between the many different comics projects I have in proto-proto development.

One of my problems has always been that I like coming up with new ideas a lot more than I like executing them. Which makes sense, of course, and I suppose it may well be everybody's problem. After all, new ideas are all shiny and abstract and, in that they are not well thought out yet, they are devoid of flaws. Those flaws come out in the work. The gaps in logic. The unreconcilable contradictions. The shallow assumptions that seem clever till you crack them open.

Of course, there's something wonderful about opening up an idea, finding those flaws, and then finding the virtue in them. Because a flaw isn't always a flaw. Sometimes the flaw is a mystery that simply needs the right solution.

As an example, in putting together the backstory for a Dungeons & Dragons game I'll be running soon, I determined that a particular town had plotted a rebellion against the evil overlords some three generations back. The evil overlords had caught wind and slaughtered most of the townsfolk, including every male except their puppet bureaucrat. They also locked down the town so that no one new could enter.

Seemed like a good idea, shows the brutality of the evil overlords. Shows the dangers of rebellion. But how, three generations ago, with no men save one in town and none more coming, did the population manage to rebuild itself?

And, no, it didn't involve the puppet bureaucrat sowing his wild oats. I can't give away the answer, and you wouldn't be able to guess it without additional backstory about the world, but suffice it to say, it's a thing of beauty.

Now, sometimes you bang your head against the wall and you bang your head against the wall, and all you do is make a mess on the wall. That'll happen. But sometimes, the smear of blood makes a pretty picture you come up with a brilliant idea that makes it all worth while.

But you have to give yourself the space you need to create. You need to keep at it, even when it gets hard. You never know when the next bit of inspiration will come.