Sunday, June 27, 2010

Writer's Block

(Warning: rather uncheery post ahead.)

Yes, my friends, that evil thing has attacked me. I'm not sure what exactly has me stuck - I think it's a combination of laziness, frustration, and flat-out fear. The scene I'm attempting to work on (and yes, I work in order, I hate skipping around) is just not working out. Possibly because I already wrote it, in a sense, and all of what comes after it as well, so I am used to these characters as they will become, not as they are in this point in their story. Which is weird.

Also, I'm trying to keep in line with the historical and rather dark new tone of this but to me, it just feels stilted and disjointed and I'm never sure if I'm doing the right thing.

Yes, yes, I know. Edits. Edits are key. And they are indeed wonderful. But tone is not something that can be fixed with edits - that's the whole reason I'm rewriting A Bridge to War from scratch. And I think rewriting it again, if I get it wrong again this time, will not only be annoying as all hell but a complete waste of my time.

But anything I say about my current state of writer's block just seems like an excuse, and often not a very good one at that. The long and short of it is that I feel rather off whenever I try and write, and so I've not been forcing it.

I think part of the reason I'm so stuck is that I don't really know where I'm going with this. I'm not sure just how many plot elements from version one I'm keeping, and how to make them work in version two, and how to work all that around existing historical events.

What I think I'll do tomorrow is outline the heck out of this and see if that helps at all. I sincerely hope it does.

5 comments:

  1. Aww no *hugs* I'm sure you'll find a way to work this all out.

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  2. Take a bit of time out, maybe watch a bunch of movies and gorge yourself on chocolate, and come back to it tomorrow?

    Always works for me ... though I'm finding "writer's block" is fast becoming an excuse for stuffing my face :P

    Good luck!

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  3. I hope you find a way!

    I was trying to get into the swing of writing (after months of not writing a word) and it was HARD. I can't bring myself to write which is disappointing :(

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  4. I agree with Caitlin, the best thing to do is relax, and laugh (especially important) until you've found that you have the courage to go back and attack it.

    I ALWAYS edit paragraphs as I write them, which is a terrible habit. The best thing to do, in such a case, is to write all the way through a piece, and then re-read it, and then, of course, edit it then.

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  5. no matter how frustrating it gets and no matter how many times you feel you've got to go back and rewrite and rewrite and edit and rewrite, this will never be a waste of your time.
    even if it takes the whole summer to write this conversation, or just a few more days of struggling, it's part of a massively awesome project that is your very own.
    so i think it's time well-spent.

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