Monday, October 19, 2009

What to do, what to do

What if you're not totally jazzed about a chapter you need to write? Does that mean there is a problem with it?

First off, let me just brag for a moment. Dimensional Risk (the sequel to R.A.G.E.) hit 20,000 words this week. For all of those who don't obsess over word count, that equals about 80 double spaced pages or in Risk's case, 7 chapters.

I've been feeling pretty good about myself, you know, taking Stephan King's advice from his book On Writing and just plowing ahead, taking little time for editing or stressing over where the story is going. I have to say it's quite liberating to be able to write and write and write, knowing I'm probably doing the best thing for the book but on the other hand I have to keep up a mantra in my head reminding myself that it doesn't have to be perfect, gosh darn it, we live in a modern age where changing a word, sentence, paragraph or even a chapter is as easy as *highlight*delete*move cursor*type new section*.

Okay, back to my original question. I hit 23,284 words today (again about 87 pages double spaced) and found myself at a road block. Now unlike the other writer's blocks I hit with frequency, this has less to do with not knowing what to write next but rather, I just don't wanna write it. The content of the next chapter seems almost dull to me. I suppose it will have a lot of action, shooting, screaming, lighting and other crap that I so much enjoy putting in my work, but I think my sense of boredom comes from my main character having cut herself off from everyone. More than just about anything (writing related) I enjoy writing dialogue. Now having a main character distant from the other main characters makes for a lot of lackluster if not downright non-existent dialogue *sob*.

So what's my fix? Do I just plow through and write it so I can get to the much more character-centric, interesting and easy to write chapter 9, or do I find a way to change chapter 8 so it appeals to me more? What would you do?

2 comments:

  1. Write of course with a chocolate in your hand!

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  2. I would look at it as a challenge - "consider the gauntlet thrown" kind of a challenge - from your characters. Maybe they want to know you've got the guts to go all the way no matter where the action takes you before they tell you what they really have in store for you. Write it baby - like the Gingerbread Man runs - full speed ahead and no looking back. Oh, and congrats on the fabulous word count! :)

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