Sunday, August 26, 2012

CONFESSIONS OF A SHOULD BE WRITING WRITER

If confessions are good for the soul, then I'm golden. I can only hope they're good for the Muse's soul as well.

I haven't been writing.

Seriously not writing. Like, doing laundry instead of writing not writing. 

Okay, (another confession) I've done some creative things, because my brain will explode into a ball of dust if I don't create something, yet even these things started to feel like resistance (no matter how cool), because I have written and created other things too -- sometimes, nearly simultaneously! But this was instead of writing.

I'd like to blame it on WRITER'S BLOCK but that wouldn't be true. I didn't know what it was, I'd nearly come up with an idea for what needed to be written next (I do have a rough outline -- I know the ending, I know BIG key points) and it wouldn't work for me.

I had Writer's Indifference. (I just came up with that term!)

And then, and then it hit me. I had too much going on. Too much! Too much para in the normal, too much story in the line, too much, too much, too much. And the stupid thing is, I thought this one was golden: perfect conflict, perfect character arc, perfect plot. I was wrong.

Last night (late, because, why would an epiphany come early) I realized I had started this book last year and it coincided with Deana Barnhart's Gearing Up to Get an Agent (an awesomely fun thing) which is, again, happening soon, and what lead to the epiphany -- because I'm still writing the darn thing! -- suddenly it hit me: mine's broken.

Okay -- maybe not broken, but it certainly needs fixing. And, I think that's why I wasn't writing -- I couldn't see what was wrong, because there were so many things going on, I couldn't see that there were so many things going on! Now, the main story remains the same -- girl wants revenge for her parents' death. I just need to brainstorm how far I should take the paranormal aspect.

I can do this. So, while I will definitely be Gearing Up to Get an Agent,  I will be concentrating on finishing my manuscript. I'm giving myself until the end of the year (seems kind of long -- I really want to shorten it, but I'm not). December 31st 2012. That is it.

P.S. Next post I'll show you what I did instead of writing.

What do you do instead of writing?