It has been entirely too long since I've written anything original. I was going strong for a while there, about a month ago, even managing to write 13 pages in like 5 hours one day. I don't think I've written anything since. It's totally bumming me out. I know all I have to do is just, oh I don't know, do it, haha. I just need to find the motivation.
See, the issue I'm having right now is that I've hit a slump in the story that I've been working on for a really long time now. I have a general idea of where I'm going, but I don't really have it mapped out scene-by-scene. I know everyone has their own style and writing process, but I'm starting to wonder if my method just isn't working for me anymore. I tend to meander my way through the plot, usually ending up somewhere totally off-track from where I intended. That's fine and all; it's part of the creative process, the journey. It happens. But sometimes I get so far off course, I have to back-track and rewrite. That already happened once. I'm now on the second version of this story. And the wall I've hit now is making me think I have to back the truck up again and rework some things. That's not a bad idea. Like I said, I understand that that's the writing process, but I'm losing steam. It's just frustrating in a totally trivial way. *Sigh*
So, I've been considering laying that one aside for the time, to stew a bit, and moving on to another piece I started last year for NaNoWriMo. I managed to make it to 50k words in November of last year, but I wasn't entirely satisfied with how it turned out. It wasn't even finished. I just sort of stopped because, once again, I had hit a wall. I love the characters; I fell in love with them immediately. And I like their situation, but I think my issue is with the way the narrative is told. The girl's point of view is told completely from her entries in an online diary that she keeps. The guy's point of view is told entirely through conversations he has with his dog (he's not crazy; the dog doesn't talk back. It's more of a therapeutic thing, haha). I really love that concept, but I haven't quite figured it out enough so that it works really well. The blog part works alright, but the dog part reads kind of funny sometimes. It doesn't really work. I think it might work better if I also had a 3rd person omniscient view point, but I don't really want that. The point was originally to tell the story through these people in a way where the reader didn't get to see all their thoughts, which is why I approached it this way. People have a hard time admitting things about themselves if they have to say it out loud (or type it for the world to see). We're only ever close to 100% honest in our own heads (though, even then we may not be honest with ourselves). Maybe I'll just switch it to normal first person, like an inner monologue, but try to reign in the stream of consciousness. I'm good at that... which is why I wanted to switch it up and not do that.
I don't know. Maybe I'll try it that way for a while, see how it works out... I'm excited to try again. Now I just have to find the time...
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