Ran aground with the story again. There’s this section from the end of last week that just wasn’t working, and it was streessssinnnggg me the frack out. Sometimes the bits that aren’t working are minor, and I can just write a note and move one. But sometimes they’re major enough that I can’t keep moving forward.
I literally don’t know what I’m writing any more, and if I push forward, I’m basically guaranteeing that everything I wrote from that point forward, at least with those characters, will need to be scrapped and rewritten. And what’s the point of that? There is no point. That’s what I learned from completing an entire draft that went off the rails suuuuper early on.
So, today I put on the brakes after 1,000 words written, and I decided that I was going to figure it out. I’m going to figure out the entire rest of this book, actually, at least from loose point of view. See, that may run aground in the coming pages too…but if that happens, I’ll pause again and figure it out.
It worked today. I latched onto something that unstuck me for this particular section I think. We’ll see when I pick up the keyboard again. But, what I’ve learned/am learning is that when this happens, I do have to stop and figure it out before moving on. Have to. Otherwise I disconnect from the story, and nothing I write is worth reading.
I’m learning that this is all part of my process. And THAT is objectively an amazing thing.
Why I disconnected from my writing last year is no longer a mystery to me: it was this. Running into a story element I dreamed up and realizing that by the time I arrived at that point, it was no longer making sense. The characters no longer felt real, and I can’t invest in fake characters.
So, that was good. Great, even. It’ll feel even better once I’ve worked it all out and this book is fucking finished…but one step at a time. I have more faith in my ability to figure this stuff out than I did even two or three months ago. I’m making progress. I really am.
Here’s to more progress tomorrow. Cheers!