Blasted Bunnies

In case you were wondering–plotbunnies and their ilk are called bunnies for one reason only. And it’s not that they’re fluffy, or cute. Many of them are not. Some, in fact, are huge and terrifying and have barbs on their teeth so once they latch onto you, there is no getting free.

Yeah, most of them have teeth like that. Even the cute fluffy ones.

And the point of this bunny babble? They are bunnies because they are as…no, more…prolific than the loveable little rodents you know. Plotbunnies (and all their cousins) spring fully formed from the ether, they don’t need parents. They don’t need a mate to reproduce, either. The writer who does not beat off the first assault fast enough is doomed; within moments an entire swarm can will itself into being and join the attack.

I’m raving about this because for the second time in a week, I’ve been jumped by a smutbunny.

Smutbunnies may well be the most insidious of the entire family. Smutbunnies get in your head and turn every innocent phrase to innuendo; they twist your thoughts towards things better not thunk, and they make editing an absolute impossibility. While you are looking for typos they are mining your playlists for their soundtrack (how about the yearning in Cheap Trick’s The Flame? Or Right Here by Staind…); when you try to decide if that action was really in character or just a sneaky plot device, they are presenting racy images of what that character actually wants to do in that scene.

Plotbunnies are worse than vampires. They latch on and they stay, and wooden stakes and sunlight don’t faze them at all.

No, there’s only one way to be rid of them.

argle. Three thousand ten words later, I think I can go back to editing Flame. Maybe. If no more bunnies lurk in the shadows.