With everything going on in my life right now, I am too distracted to be productive with my writing. Every morning I sit down to knock out at least 1500 words. I'll get through maybe 200 words before I start feeling like an adolescent pup in a room filled with grasshoppers. Everything has my attention but my MS. At least I have thirty-two new and unrelated Pandora stations. This wouldn't be so bad if my stories would get distracted as well, but they don't. All I hear is children bouncing off the walls. "Hey. Hey. When are you gonna let us out? We got a couple to rape and kill." a psychopath's penis screams at me. "Can I finish torturing this guy, or what?" a vengeful doctor asks patiently. It's like shaking SuperBalls out of a box when the opening is barely bigger than one of the balls. The entire time, all I can see are the mother-of-pearl flashes of my monster's eyes stalking through the shadows – hungry, ready to get on paper and kill again. And if that Mephistophelean bartender doesn't stop whistling that goddam song from The Sting, I'm going to go crazy. Hopefully, after I get moved things will settle down, the box will stop shaking, and the hole will get bigger
Well, it's good you're aware that those characters are in your head. Mine pretty much resemble silent prisoners that gave up all hope for being let free. My mind is like a place hit by a famine -- all people gone, a corpse here and there, the only remnats of life being croaking craws.
[MENTION=53984]Garball[/MENTION] - why did you stop in the first place? Is it lack of inspiration, issues going on in real life, you've lost motivation and/or patience, or what? Pinpoint the issue, resolve that, and then your writing should flow again. By the looks of your post, you're quite able to write (a teen in a pub with grasshoppers and children bouncing off the walls both made me grin ) My issue when I couldn't get more than 2 sentences down for my MS was that I no longer believed in my story - the moment a fellow WF member took an interest, within just ONE DAY, I was energised again. I've been working on my novel again since, after a 4-month-block! [MENTION=51404]Hwaigon[/MENTION] - Hugs. What happened? What's your story about? Maybe you can both start talking about your stories - who knows, it could get inspiration flowing again There's magic in seeing another member get excited about your story. The thing is, we writers, we don't want to give up, we love our stories. All we need is the smallest, slightest reason to continue, and we will. Let's encourage each other
If you really can't concentrate on it, I'd give it a small rest. Continue to ruminate on it, if you can, but by giving yourself a break, you can let your ideas for the story kind of simmer under the surface, and when you get back to it, you'll be more able to focus on it. You could also try writing some short stories -- whether they are related to your story and characters or totally different from your current m/s. I know from your posts, Garball, that you do have a lot going on right now, so allowing yourself a break is fine -- writing should be enjoyable, not a burden. Also, I've found that if I force myself to write, without having the inspiration to do so, all I write is garbage. If I'm inspired, the writing is much better.
All I want to do is sit down and write; to wean the characterlings off the teat of Mother Idea and watch them grown into healthy strong MC's. I am moving tomorrow, bouncing off of family's offers for a couple nights of room and board at their houses. Have some soul searching to do; this is a chance for me to make decisions for myself, not what I think might make somebody else happy. Now, I've got this nagging little voice whispering in my ear, "You've never been to Montana."
McKK: thank you I really don't know what happened; having had the chance to see the many resources in uni library (books - quality books - that I haven't read and probably never will, 'cos there's so MANY), the academic approach to writing, publishing and all that combined... I feel like a small fry with little to say, with little to contribute to the world. All seems too encompassing, to overwhelming to know one's way around. I question and challenge my concepts, whether they are strong enough to withstand the sweeps of modern world, postmodernism and how they reflect real life. How much they portray the real life, how much I know about it. How much it is important to know about it. It all leaves me with more questions than answers and writing about the process of how I percept this manifold complexity is important mostly to me, not to the external reader, observer. Or that's what I think. That all creates a creative vacuum in my mind, 'cos there's no solid basis upon which I could build some construction. Or a story. And that's mostly what I write about --about not being able to write. If I ever am to write a real good story, it would be all the above mentioned combined with a simple structure with an encoded, hidden message to it. Thank you so much for such encouraging words...did not expect them...and needed them, to be sincere. Talking about my story might help, true. I might continue -- maybe I shall one day write about the fight to continue
