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

And so it begins!

Once again, we've reached the beginning of Camp NaNoWriMo.  Tyler (my brother-in-law who is also participating) and I stayed up till midnight so that we could get a head start, and both of us have reached out daily word count goal before the sun is even up, so that's pretty cool.  I'm simply continuing The Window of Impossible Things, and he's starting a new story.  It's been really fun having a writing buddy who was actually...you know...writing with me.  We've been swapping quotes and concepts back and forth, bouncing ideas off each other for inspiration.

It's been a while since I've really written anything, and I stopped on a rather difficult part of the novel.  I wasn't sure where to go from there, so I was worried that getting back into the swing of writing would take quite a while.  And yes, tumblr and Penny Arcade did distract me for a while, but I'm excited that the words flowed as quickly as they did.  I'm writing the second act turn, the rallying point for my MC to rise up after her Dark Night of the Soul and realize that she actually can accomplish her goal.  It's going rather well, though I'm not quite sure how I feel about what I've just written.  It's alright, but I think it needs a bit more.  I'll probably fix that later.  Note to self: August is for editing!

I'm really excited that Tyler is participating this month.  I always bug people to do NaNo, and though several of my friends and even my husband have previously agreed, it hasn't had nearly the effect on them as it has had on me.  It didn't help them write more, and it didn't make them more excited about writing.  Tyler seems to be different, though.  He's been saying for days how anxious he is to get writing, and he seems legitimately excited to write, which is good.  That's how I always feel, so it's finally nice to share the experience with someone who feels similarly to me about it.

I think this is going to be an interesting month.  I just hope I can finally finish my novel.  It will just make my year if I can finish the first draft of this thing and start editing and whatnot.  I'm anxious to finish everything and finally allow someone else to read it.  I'm really only working with my own opinion here, and that's unusual for me.

It's late, I'm tired, and I have more writing to do later today, so goodnight and happy writing!

Victoria

PS: 1251