Blockage

It's finally happened.  I spent all of April cruising merrily through my story, idea after idea flowing freely through my brain, only to hit the second act turn and BAM!  I've hit a wall.

That's right.  I have writer's block.

I was seriously hopeful that it wouldn't hit me, at least not until the climax, but nope, here it is.  I'm super stuck, and it's driving me nuts.  There are several flaws with the direction I've taken my story, and I really need to fix them before this blockage will clear up.

My bad guys are weak.  The big giant evil thing that they're going to do?  Yeah, it's stupid.  My MC wouldn't care at all if they succeeded.  It doesn't affect her in any way, and she's not selfless or noble enough to jump to the rescue of the world's happiness.  They have to be doing something seriously messed up for her to go through the effort of stopping them, and they're not.  I can't force her to care.  She's sitting in a corner stubbornly refusing to go.  She always was a stubborn one.

I'm also tapping her on the shoulder, reminding her that she has to be a bit more active in her own story.  She can't let the other characters do everything for her; she has to take the reins and drive this thing herself.  She started off doing this excellently, but once other people started butting in, she got lazy.  Poor thing's been through a lot, but she can't give up now.  She's still got the hardest part of the book ahead of her.

I really don't know what to do.  Endings have always been my weakness (which seems like a very serious flaw for a writer, now that I really think about it), and I'm stuck.  It's really not good for my whole "finish this book by the end of the month" thing, and I'm starting to feel discouraged that I can't seem to find any decent way to resolve these issues.  I think the second thing will help resolve itself if I can only fix the first problem, but I'm having no luck with that so far.  The bad guys persist in being cardboard, and I need something real.

I've taken to hand writing some notes in hope of inspiration, but so far it's not working very well.  However, like the optimist I am, I will keep trying.  I have work at 10 tomorrow morning, but I think I'm going to stay up obscenely late anyway.  It feels like one of those nights.

Victoria