Now that's an idea...

I finally managed to get past my writer's block, but I am gradually realizing that inspiration comes at a price.  I know a way to make my story more interesting, more dynamic...but it requires a TON of rewrite...and possibly the loss of my story I was working on in November, Curious Nonsense, aka Mirora.

It has just occurred to me that taking bits and ideas from Mirora would really benefit this story.  I would have to use the entire main idea behind Mirora, which would destroy and derail that story completely.  I'm not going to lie and say that this is a difficult choice; I'd all but decided not to finish Mirora already, so killing it won't be that big of a deal.  No, it's what it will do to The Window of Impossible Things that I'm worried about.  I love this story, I love my original idea for it, and I'm scared to change so much about what it is.  Some might call this the natural evolution of my story, but I can't help seeing it slightly differently.

If I change this about Window, I'm terrified I'll start to lose what I like so much about this story.  I'm scared it'll be too much.  I don't know if I have the patience or energy to completely rewrite so much of Window, so I'm scared of how much this new/old idea will change it.  I don't want to let this one go.  I don't want it to sit unfinished on my computer and notebook for the next five years like the other stories I've started and never finished.  It's a scary thought.  I'm scared to take this chance that I'll change it too much.  I don't want the story to lose its identity, and I certainly don't want to start all over again.

Contrariwise, however, this new idea excites me.  I'm madly curious to see where this could take Anya, and how it will change where she's been.  I like her, and I'm anxious to put her in the type of story and situations her character deserves.  She deserves more than what I'm giving her at the moment, and the blockage has stemmed from my sudden realization of the fact that I've left her in an impossible situation.  I left her a plot that she didn't care about and that she couldn't fix even if she did care, and I could tell it wasn't going to work.  I think Anya will blossom much more beautifully in this new story direction.

But what of her writer?

Will I be able to pull it off?  I don't have a lot of confidence in my patience and persistence.  They've let me down so many times that I don't know whether to trust myself to really finish this story.  I really want to.  But I'm really good at convincing myself that I don't want things that will cause me too much trouble.  And I don't want to convince myself that this story isn't worth it, because I know that it is.

I'm sure I'm not the first person to have this sort of problem, and I doubt I'll be the last.  I suppose the only thing I can do is trust my excitement, trust my instinct that this will be really awesome, something for me to stay excited about.

I hope I'm making the right decision.

Victoria

Behind and Panicking

...well, a little.

Currently, I've written 6,520 words for my novel.  I've maneuvered my way past the Inciting Incident (an excerpt of which can be seen in my last post), and now I'm trying hard not sprint toward the First Act Turn too quickly (leaving the bits in between riddled with plot holes and lack of storytelling).  Luckily, I've gotten most of my structure for the first half planned out decently well...or at least enough that I basically know what's coming next.  I decided to use the three act structure to plan out my story, and it's working so far.

I'm starting to get a little nervous because of how behind I am on my word count.  To stay on the right track, my graph says I should be at about 13,300 words.  I'm barely reaching the halfway point, and I have no idea how much I'll write today.  I like to think I'll get at least a thousand words done, but with a history of jazz quiz and Quidditch practice (not the mention the distractions of my friends and the internet), there's just no telling.

Luckily, I've finally reached a part that I'm excited to write.  I get to tell a bit of history and backstory, and I'm very excited.  The bad thing about getting to this part I've been looking forward to is that now I don't know how to write it in the way that I would like.  Since it's something I like, I want to write it well, so it's been difficult for me to start.  I tried to write it in class yesterday, but I just kept scratching out and rewriting because the words just wouldn't come out right.

Shannon and I went to our first NaNoWriMo wWrite-In on Tuesday night, which was awesome!  We met some really cool people and had a fun time discussing the oddest things while all trying to give our word counts a little boost.  It was also kinda cool because we were writing and hanging out while watching the presidential election results roll in, though that surprisingly took up little of our conversation.  We had a great time, and I hope to attend as many of the others as I can.

Well, I suppose I should stop procrastination and get back to either writing or homework.  I can't tell anymore if I'm procrastinating homework by writing or procrastinating writing by doing homework...or perhaps I'm procrastinating both of them by spending way too much time surfing the web.  Such is life.

Happy writing!

Victoria