In which I speak of humility and hope.

Hello dear readers,

The craziness of NaNo & Thanksgiving having subsided, I’ll go ahead and congratulate all of you who made your goals this November, in writing and otherwise. Congratulations!!!

Sadly, I was not one of those folks. I came in at just over 25k for my goal of 50k on Mindspace Book #4. The last week, in which I had planned to write like the wind, turned into a lot of beating my head against the wall–not literally, at least not mostly.

So what happened? For awhile there, I had no idea. All I knew was that Adam & Book Four was stuck in the Foggy Swamp of NonWriting Doom. I’d sit down to write 2 or 3k and end up with 500 or 600 words. Tops. It was super frustrating, and I couldn’t figure out why. The rabbits, of course, would pop up with non-writing chores, but they always do that. The question was why I couldn’t seem to get the words out when I really, really tried.

I went back to basics on Friday/Saturday, and after some work, I had a revelation. Writer’s block, at least according to me, always indicates an issue with the writer (such as fear, for example), or an issue with the story. In this case, it was an issue with the story. Not only do I have some logical plot holes I could drive a truck through, I also am missing sufficient conflict. Worse, my evil villain has informed me that there was “much more going on than I could ever imagine” – and then failed to supply details. Sigh.

So, this week I’m hitting the planning modules again, going back through character and plot and setting to flesh out details and make it all hang together. Yes, there will be massive scenes sacrificed–thousands and thousands of words left on the cutting room floor–but as I leave the week covered in book-blood and word-gore, I will emerge with a leaner, tighter, stronger story with meaner characters and better moments. Fingers crossed.

I’ll let you know how it goes.