Tag: Blockage

bookmark_borderAnother NaNo Ends

Posted on by PaulaO

And this year I won.

I won not just by writing 50K words, but I won it because I found I could write again. I didn’t know if I could. I thought perhaps I had lost the ability. My jokes of “one book wonder” was becoming not a joke.

I wrote over 4385 words today to end with 50,210 words. I didn’t write much the past few days because I realized I didn’t know where the end was. I didn’t have a clue what was to happen on the last page. Finally, at some point yesterday, it came to me. I didn’t have a chance to sit down and to it until today. And I did it. I wrote the ending.

The story’s not a bad one. It has great potential. But it is missing a lot. And it has so much dialogue it’s sad. It is a very emotional story but still feels flat. At least to me it does. Lorna likes it and wants me to hurry up and finish it. I will poke around on it a few more days, maybe fill in between where I left off the other day and to where I started today. Then in January, I’ll do the rewrite (or 2).

I cannot express how I feel about being able to write again. It feels good. Solid. Real.

I didn’t do a daily word count. I had a small section in a spreadsheet that had the global goals but no daily stuff. I don’t want to turn into a Word Count Queen again.

bookmark_borderStruggling

Posted on by PaulaO

My push to write has ground to a halt. Bits and pieces of flotsam and jetsam have jammed my gears. It is irritating.

Meanwhile, I’ve read some truly awful books (with poor editing and copy editing, too!) and while I know I can do better than that, I just can’t seem to get it going.

I did have some flashes of inspiration and wrote out several two page somethings. One was very very weird. Weirder than my normal weird. I deleted it. The other two I saved. Maybe some day, if you are nice, I might share. Don’t hold yer breath though.

I still can’t just let myself go and write whatever comes off the tips of my fingers as they bang the keys. The three short stories (more like flash fiction) kinda helped, but I can’t seem to do it on the current WIPs. Very frustrating.

I hurt my back today. I bent over. Silly of me, I know. My shoulder is killing me, too. When Fay was giving us the much needed rain, I was drugged to keep the pain at bay or at least to a dull roar. Monster Blue is still at the repair shop. Come to find out, the monkeys in Charlotte had freakin’ unplugged everything underneath. They’d opened the battery compartment and unplugged everything. Since I’d had trouble with it before that, I didn’t think to actually look. But while Mobility Concepts had the thing, they did some upgrading for safety reasons. I had a busted armrest (damn flimsy plastic on a place where people put their weight to transfer) and was missing both armrest pads (one blew off on the way to Atlanta three years ago). I can go get Blue at any time while they wait for the parts. And I can, now, since Lorna finally got her car on the road and I have My Truck back.

At any rate, there ya go.

bookmark_borderWriting for Whom?

Posted on by PaulaO

Used to, I just sat down and wrote. My mind wasn’t crowded by crap such as sentence structure, plot, and the dreaded Show, Don’t Tell. (shudder)

I could sit down and write several thousand words a day and not break a sweat. A story just flowed from one point to the other, rambling along its way. When it was done, I just cut out what didn’t need to be there and fixed the rest.

Now I’m lucky to get several hundred words a day. I keep thinking (which is a problem of its own) about where the paragraph/chapter is going, how to keep it in line, etc etc etc. I don’t let the story just take off and take me along with it.

It’s driving me nuts.

It started not long after BGCFA was released. I stopped writing for myself and started writing for Them. The fun, the joy, was lost in the chaos. Or, perhaps, it was lost in the order. Chaos is something I almost thrive on. Yeah, sure, I like my sheets to match. And I like all the spoons in the drawer to face the same way. And watching me play Tetris would make you think I have OCD. Trust me, I don’t have OCD (or CDO, which is the same but in alphabetical order like it should be).

I am trying to write, honest I am. The deadline isn’t bothering me, so that’s not why I am failing. I tend to set myself up to fail in order to prove I am scum on the pond God created. I may not have OCD but I do have OHR. Anyway, I am trying to write. I want to let loose what is inside but it is hesitant. Afraid to show its face only to get slapped down by the Chicago Manual of Style. And since it knows the CMS is a hard back book of 956 pages, it isn’t going to just rush out and greet the world again. I may be crazy but I ain’t stupid.

What I think I will do is dig out my Zen, select the Writing folder of music, and just start typing. Worked before. Maybe it will work again.