Hanging threads

What do you do when you're 70,000 words into a manuscript (okay actually 78,000 words, 8,000 of which I have deemed unworthy but can't seem to delete) and you just don't feel it coming together? I have all these little threads I've been setting out since the beginning, characters that I intend of having a great impact at the end and subtle little mini-plots worked in throughout. Trouble is, now I'm feeling the pinch. At 70,000 words the novel should be winding up, everything rolling together into a nice little package that will explode into a dramatic fireworks grand finale of climatic satisfaction and yet my threads are still hanging in a million different directions without a rubberband in sight to hold them in place.

I finally had to pin my husband down last night and give him the abbreviated plot version and beg him to help me out of my rubberbandless dilemma. It helped. A lot in fact. I was able to fix and finish the chapter I'd been wallowing through and even started on the next chapter. That put one thread in place, now I just need to work the other ones in. I have no doubt that everything will work out in the end, but just now I'm in writing purgatory. Right now there's not a lot of enjoyment in putting words down because I know they're bad and will need to be fixed later. The only thing that keeps me going is that whatever I'm writing, I have no doubt I will be able to improve on it--and I will. Yessiree. That's the good part about writing. Most of the time it can only get better. If you're already at good-better-best, you should probably be publishing.

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?

Training wheels until chapter 12

On the writing front things have been slow. They've been even slower on the muralist front, though, so I shouldn't complain.

I'm stuck--as in writers block up the ying-yang. Of course my characters won't stop shouting me down from chapter 12 and all I can do is shout back that I'm not quite there yet...nor will I ever be if they don't be quiet for a few minutes (or months) and let me catch up.

What can I say, my characters have a tendency to take over. It's like the overly ambitious child you've just taught to ride a bike. You point them in the right direction and they take off without regard to all the obstacles in their way, leaving you in the dust knowing full well they will crash and the result will be rewriting 50,000 extra words just to make up for where they've left you. I don't know how many times I've been typing along a premeditated plot line and one of my characters out of the blue will do something quite shocking and in no wise planned. Not only do my eyebrows take the elevator all the way up to my hairline, but these !@#$ characters leave me with an all new plot twist that I have to make work throughout the rest of the book. Hey even authors can be surprised by their work

So the writers block, though being a much slower-paced way of life, has at least allowed me plenty of time to think about the shouted chapter 12. If I had started writing it out of order (as I am known to do) I would most assuredly have to cast it out at a later date to make way for all the new (self-propelled as opposed to character-propelled) things crowding my brain right now in regards to major plot lines. I am already seeing big changes that need to take place in my first three precious chapters, but hallelujah, every day the plot picture is becoming clearer.

Someone once said that writers block is your friend. It allows you to reassess your plot and characters to determine why you don't care enough about them to get past the block. Well all I have to say about that is, poo-poo. My trouble right now is that I care too much to make a mistake. I have written a higher word count of mistakes into first drafts than I have of words I've kept. Mistakes allow you to see what your book could have been had you not edited, rewritten, edited, rewritten again, worried, cared, and thrashed in your sleep until your husband kicks you out to go finish that !@#$ chapter so everyone can finally sleep in peace.

Well hopefully my most darling and scathing writers group can help me past this stupid block. Sometimes these meetings leave me at the point of running to my characters for sympathy (something that almost never ends well as the Commander usually ends up shooting Rose out of the blue or Justet plots a kidnapping, thereby causing me stress and extra writing, rather than the relief I'd hoped by running into their arms). However, group meetings never fail to get my fingers back on the keyboard to start pounding away on that skeletal and usually drivel-like first draft again.

Progress. Forward. Moving on. Hopefully it won't be on the wobbly character-ridden bike. I think I'll put the training wheels back on until I get to chapter 12.