My favorite poet, Robinson Jeffers, wrote nightmares into his narrative poems. In his "Apology For Bad Dreams", he wrote: "Better invent than suffer, imagine victims Lest your own flesh be chosen the agonist ..." "Burn sacrifices once a year to magic Horror away from the house ..." "... I imagined victims for those wolves, I made them phantoms to follow, They have hunted the phantoms and missed the house." It works for other writers, sometimes. Spew your hell onto the pages, and then, if you want to, burn those pages. It might help you.
For me.... Not having anyone in my real world surroundings for whom writing is an interest and with whom I can speak about my writing or writing in general in a real time manner.
I've just finished my first first draft an I'll tell you this, my biggest challenge so far has been keeping my attention on that one project. Funny that, isn't it? No matter what you're working on, there's always something better that you COULD be working on...
Starting. I have 2 novel length works in my head and I can't start them. I just can't. I mean I have the opening scene for the rewrite of Becoming Dead, with my MC at a party complaining he is drinking 7 Up instead of a beer. I have a loose idea of the second novel with the MC examining his new room and eventually being called down where he wants to shout at his parents. The second isn't exactly probably the strongest of starts. But it doesn't matter. I can't seem to get myself to open up Microsoft Word and just start typing. >.< Then of course there is my current inability to actually write more then whats is seen. I can't seem to get in my characters heads and add more emotion into the writing. I know I once was able to do this easily(though its arguable if it was done well lol) but right now its just not coming.
Yes! Certainly! For every finished piece I've half a dozen unfinished ones. It's always tempting to want to write "just one more chapter in-", or "just another paragraph of-", even when I'm busy with another project. I usually just scribble a quick note of any ideas for other pieces that come to my, and put it away with the other piece for later.
