Writer's Block
It’s been a tough week and a half. I think every writer faces writer’s block at some point or another. For me, it comes in two flavours. The first flavour is a pain in the butt, but the second is excruciating.
The Brick Wall involves staring at a blank piece of paper for hours and literally not knowing what to write. And I do mean 'literally’—I’m frozen, completely paralyzed. I might manage a few words, or maybe a sentence, but it ends up being quickly deleted, over and over again. What I do know is that if I keep writing, sooner or later something coherent comes out of my brain. It is almost as if banging my head against the wall repeatedly knocks the right thoughts into place.
The Doubt Dragon is evil and insidious, and it hit me hard last week. I had nearly 2000 words written for chapter nine of Four Seasons - Fall, but every single time I read it, it seemed wrong. It was trite. It didn’t fit the story. The characters were out of character. They said things they wouldn’t say and did things they wouldn’t do. No matter what I tried, I couldn’t fix it. I re-wrote the chapter, deleted words, added words, changed words. I repeated this process every day for nearly a week. Finally, yesterday, I managed to get chapter eight and nine cleaned up and as good as they were going to get. They are a long way from ‘perfect’, but I can live with ‘good enough’—for now.
Here, in all its glory, is Four Seasons - Fall with chapters eight and nine cleaned up. You can judge for yourself whether it adds or subtracts from the story. https://dl.bookfunnel.com/wzmr3s51iz
Cheers until next week,
Mark