Monday, March 24, 2014

To much time and to much fear - my killers of creativity.

Having nothing to do kills creativity faster than anything that I have ever known. It's not like I don't have chores that I should be spending my time on and wouldn't take as long to do if just jumped up and did them, but now nearing the eight month of my pregnancy I just don't have the energy to do much for a long periods of time. This dilemma has resulted in me sitting in the comfy chair in my living room more than is healthy. I sit there almost all day watching some tv show, as the day slips by.
I could be writing but I can't even muster up the enthusiasm to do that. My brain just completely shuts down at the mere thought, which is very frustrating. I have all the time in the world to be working on the novel and all I do is waste it. 

The second thing that is killing my creativity is fear. It's been almost six months since I have written a full scene and now that I am ready to dive back in, it terrifies me. I feel lost and without a sense of control. I come up with endless excuses as why I should not start, I don't know enough about this scene, I don't know the characters well enough, I have to plan more scenes ahead. The list goes on and on and none of them are all that good, most of these excuses aren't even true. 

I know enough about the first few chapters that I should have no problem writing them, and if anything I would probably have a great time with them and learn the things that I will need later on. But I deprive myself of the experience and enjoyment by constantly postponing the writing. 

There will never come a perfect time to start and any time is better than never doing it at all, so why wait, why make this fear control me. I need to face the fact that the first draft will not be the final version and it's alright to make as many mistakes with in it as humanly possible. It's the first draft, it's supposed to stink. It's supposed to be the worst version of the story. The novel can only improve after the first draft has been written, never before. 

I have a second deadline to start writing, April 1 , as the other one didn't take. For an added pressure I am going to write 50,000 words over the month of April as a part of Camp Nano. Now I am wondering why I am waiting for April 1 to start writing, will it be any easier then than it is now. Shouldn't I be using the next week to getting in the rithm of writing. To get over the fear and into the flow. 

I need to jump in and get over my fear by submerging myself in it. That way I will have conquered both the writers block and my insane boredom.  I hope I have the self control to force myself to do this.




Sunday, March 9, 2014

Progress so far

When I set the deadline for February the 14th I thought it was a reasonable one. I saw the novel I was working on rather clearly and thought with dedication and a lot of hard work I would nail the outline in three weeks.
That didn't work out, for one I had to babysit three of my nephews for a week which left me falling asleep in the chair in their living room around eight-nine every evening. I had a couple of hours to work on the novel a day but no much more. Then when I got back home, the flu hit me.
Two weeks of my three had gone and there had been very little work accomplished. I tried to make the most of the week I had left but it proved not to be enough. I think even if I had the other two weeks to work it wouldn't have been enough.
It is now almost a month later and I have to admit I am still working on the outlines.

I have realized that I though I was writing one series centered around a character that I barely knew but was obsessed with keeping as a main character. There was a cast of characters that I new where going to be in the series and I had the plot somewhat nailed down. The only problem for the last ten years that I have tried to write this story is that the story goal was never that clear to me.
I knew that I wanted to write a story about epic magic and a world filled with wonder. There had to be some great power that the characters where after and trying to stop.

I blame both laziness and fear for not pushing harder to define what the story goal really was. While I didn't narrow it down my daydream of becoming a writer was still intact without screwing the story up spectacularly. This is the worst cop out ever and I know it. I can't very well sell books without ever writing it. I knew this but still fear and maybe a small self-disciplinary issues kept me from really digging deep.

It took me a while but finally I have got down the story goal and the plot. I got a little sick and tired of not knowing what the story was really about and with out the story goal I  was going to keep on changing the story a thousand times without ever getting any closer to finishing it.

What happened though after I narrowed down the story was that I don't have the one series I though I was going to write but two connected one's (with a little room for standalone story's in the same world). The story I was focused on writing all these years can't work with out the story that comes before it. All this time I thought that was just back story but it turned out to be equally or even more fascinating and exiting story there than I had originally thought.
Characters I thought were only secondary or even villains have taken center stage and I have to admit I am having more fun working on the story now than I have had since I had the first idea.

I have no idea if this will work or not, or that these series will ever get published but I have finally found out how the story is supposed to be. If that isn't a small victory in this long journey I don't know what is. ; )