It started with a little whisper of an idea and my fingers were able to spin it out into a story. Nearly 10,000 words on my first day of NaNoWriMo. All spun out by my muse.
Yesterday I wrote nothing and lay under a mantle of icky feelings. Today I have turned back to it and it is a different ball game altogether. I made the mistake of allowing my eyes to linger on what had previously been written and someone how it doesn't seem to shine so bright. The effect of the morning after. We lose the moment.
I also have the problem that that tiny idea has taken me far further than I had expected. My main character has, within those 10,000 words, changed the world completely and utterly and also by accident. Now she has to figure out to live in it. I don't have much idea where she is going or how she is going to get there and the words no longer feel alive as i write them.
What do you do when you lose the plot? You keep going, one word at a time because even the plot just doesn't matter, all that matters is writing those 50,000 words. One word at a time... How slow it will be if they don't start to flow again...
I guess it is kind of appropriate that my main character is a lost soul too.
The New Cottagesmallholder HQ
4 months ago
Yay, great start! Don't let the nasty, old critic get the better of you just keep going. Doesn't matter what you write, just write, let the muse take you where it wants to. Doesn't need to make sense at this point, just keep going.......................
ReplyDeleteI'm still wrestling with the writing crap just for the hell of it idea....it really does violate my basic nature :) It's like Sarah had commented on my post...writing is our craft, so to do shoddy work just doesn't feel right. At the same time, it doesn't do to get caught up in the old perfectionist Editor trap....
ReplyDeleteI managed to dislodge myself from the Boggart...just by walking away from the screen and sitting down with pen and notebook and just writing stuff down about my characters, made them more real, and then came the town they live in and the troubles they face and from there the story started to take shape. Then, when I finally sat at the computer, the words flowed more easily.
I realize it's a shade less romantic than churning out reams of spontaneous prose but there's something to be said for the anticipation factor that comes with a little advance planning...;) Plus, it helps me deal more gently with the fact that the kids have been hogging the computer these last few days...*grin*
((hugs)) Don't expect to much of yourself..you've got the lurgy and should be resting. Besides you have a monumental cushion on your word count..
Oh, and apologies, I haven't got to read your bit yet...computer-hogs, y'know