Yesterday I woke up and I wanted nothing more than to sit down and write. Unfortunately, I had to go to work. The same thing happened this morning. I woke up, looked at my wall of crazy lady notes, and wanted to write. But then I had to go to work.
It’s a bit of a terrible feeling when all you want to do is write, but you can’t. Because there are so many moments when you know you have to write, but you just don’t want to. I’ve had a solid week of that. And I’ve gotten through it, but it’s a lot harder to write a bunch when you are just not feeling it. I also feel like it shows a bit in your writing. Because I’m working on draft 1.5, I’m not super concerned about it, as I know I can edit it out later in one of the major revisions that I know is coming. Still, it sucks when every word is a struggle and you’re trying not to get distracted.
I think things might be changing for me, though. It’s probably in part because I’ve been being SUPER adamant about sitting down and writing, even when I don’t want to. I tell you, habits are a great thing. However, I also think it has something to do with where I’ve got to in the story. I think I’ve mentioned it before, but for various reasons I have a large about of this book written, but also, it’s quite clipped, as in I condensed it a lot when I was working on it. This means that I have to add a fair number of words to the project to get it to the length I want, but more importantly, to tell the story that I want to. As a result, I haven’t been able to just revise what I have (which is why I’m calling it draft 1.5). I’ve had to write a lot and expand on ideas. This has meant a lot of remembering things, and shoving stuff in, but in a way that works. Now, however, after adding around 13,000 words to the initial word count, I think I’ve caught up to the story in some regards. It’s still not going to be an exact word-for-word transcription, but it’s a lot easier to draw from, and that’s exciting. It also helps that the story is on the upswing and I know that I’m about to get into things that I can’t wait to write about.
So maybe, just MAYBE, I’m out of the slump that I’ve been fighting against, and writing will just be awesome again.
