The 'B' Word

Writer's Block
Only 26 days to go and I've got writer's block. I don't believe in writer's block so I'm particularly miffed by this. Actually, I'm not going to call it writer's block; I'm going to call it 'writer's blur' - that's how much I don't believe in it!

Writer's Blur
Right, so I've got writer's blur and it's a pain in the rear. It's not a block as such, it's more of a continuing disagreement between my characters and myself. I thought, once I'd got through the tricky middle bit, they'd play ball all the way to the end but they are not. I know exactly where I want them to go but they're not going there. Every time I try to take them where I want, their dialogue becomes totally unbelievable. It's a real pain but I'm going to have to delete stacks of work and just follow the characters again. However great the plot is, if the characters wouldn't do those things then I've got to scrap the plot. It's a little annoying that I have only 26 days to embark upon this Wild Character Chase but so be it. Here begins the Tragical Misery Tour of deleting weeks worth of work, abandoning my plot and handing my book back to the characters.

Wish me luck.

The 'B' Word

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The First Week

It's the end of my first week as a blogger and it's gone quite well. The blog's up. I've blogged every day. I've put up some gadgets and I've even earned myself a follower. It has been refreshing to sit down and write whatever stream-of-consciousness nonsense came to mind without worrying too much about grammar, style and what-not so I think I'll keep at it. From now on though, maybe I'll blog every week or just when really substantial things happen because that countdown gizmo is scaring the whatnot out of me and I am horribly aware that I need to get a move on with my novel if I hope to hit my deadline. The 'writers write' thing (first post) is nagging at me. If I want to be a successful novelist, I need to be disciplined about my deadlines - even if they are just B.S. self-imposed ones.

So, thanks for reading this far. Please click 'follow this blog' and I'll be back when there is something interesting to report - or in 2009 - whichever comes sooner.

The First Week

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Mid-Book Crisis!

It's that middle bit again. I wondered why I was in such a state. Have a look at my first post if you're not sure what I'm on about. That middle bit is a pain in the rear.

Yesterday, my Writing Spa Day was moving along well until I sat down and tried to tweeze a chapter out of my brain. At this point it became clear that something was wrong. I never need to tweeze chapters out of my brain unless...unless...it's the middle of the bloody novel isn't it? Why yes, it is. Grrrrr! Unwilling to admit defeat, I pulled out my plan for the novel and attempted to shoe-horn my characters through the right doors and into the right conversations but they simply wouldn't play by the rules. Their petulance sloped off the page like goo from a bled radiator. It was cruddy writing. Unwilling to let go of the reins, I tried harder and it got worse so finally I just let them do what they wanted and things got interesting.

Plot Renaissance
It turns out that the characters don't want to go madly off piste, they just want me to revive an idea I had in the very early planning stages of the novel - an idea I had when writing my first novel in fact. The moment I started to write it down, my characters came back to life, the dialogue snapped back into place and I was rolling. I'm not sure if I'm quite past the annoying mid-book crisis stage yet - I've got to get all the characters back on board - so I'm going to stop setting myself 4,000 word a day deadlines because it's just not going to happen for a few days. Instead, until January, I'm going to try 1,000 words a day. Not only that, but I'm taking Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day off. I'm such a rebel! By then, I should be over the tricky bit and I'll be in the magical zone of '4,000 words a day? That's nothing. I did 5,000 today.' Fingers crossed.

Man-Flu Update
Hubby's man-flu has got uncivilized. He's getting through environmentally destructive quantities of tissue paper. I've been coughing and spluttering too but my body seems to be fighting it off. His folks are still coming over tomorrow although I'm fairly sure that neither of us will be great company and Frosty the Fan Oven is still giving the freezer a run for its money so I've no idea what we will be eating.

Will you Help?
A few hundred more words, and endless housework, to do before the end of the day so I'd better get on with it. Hope you like the little gadgets I've put up on the blog. I plan to put an acknowledgement at the front of my first novel when it's published to thank everyone for promoting this blog and my book so if you'd like to be one of them, just copy a banner and link back here so I can spread the word.

Ta Muchly x

Mid-Book Crisis!

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