I have spent the better part of the day – maybe six hours all told but it could be pushing eight – writing a total of five pages. They obviously did not come easy. Every word in every line feels wrong, every motivation stilted. It’s pushing 1 AM and I am reluctant to quit for the day despite my fatigue because I don’t feel I’ve done enough to justify sleep.
I write a few lines, I back up several paragraphs to regain momentum, scrawl another line, stop. I read and reread. I see where I’ll have to go back and work dialogue, make the characters voices distinct. I spot details I will have to back-fill.
I so want to quit this story.
I cannot beleive this simple story doesn’t want to be told, at least not at this time.
I feel like one of my freakin’ characters, trapped in the darkest part of their journey, steeped in bleek and certain I’ll never find my way out. All well and good, because I need to be able to feel that in order to properly convey that same feeling through my character, but why the hell can’t I get the characters into this spot? Why am I on the inside and they’re on the outside?
These are the moments where we go in search of the impossible, the ridiculous. I want a mysterious stranger to deliver the magic pebble, or secret map. A little personal deus ex machina, if you will. Just this once, just to get over the hump.
I know, I signed up for this. No one said it would be easy. I know. I know.
Crap.
Man can I relate. I think in this murky place we have all manners of faith. Some comes from our beginnings and what others gave us (and one of the reasons we hold it so dear), but some born from our experiences. In my world I’ve had many a lesson gone not knowing why, but later on, glad for the knowledge. There isn’t any bit of creative endeavor unnecessary. Like that snake feeding itself it’s tail, this “wasted” effort may very well be the the feast you need at another time to feed your work. Rale at the wind, dance with the stars, but you know this struggle will haunt you till you find the place for it. Sleep well, being human is hard and you’ve succeeded.
Sorry. Can’t do much other than say I’ve been there. I’m awfully short on magic pebbles.
Urg! I know this place, David! This is the place we all look back at and hope we *never* land there again! Just keep telling yourself you will get to look back on it from a better place…
You’ll find your way out. Eventually. Believing it is hard, though, I know. Can you try something to shake yourself loose? Skip ahead in the story? Jump over the part you’re stuck in and write another part, one that you can see more clearly? Sometimes jumping around helps me a lot. But if you can’t…keeping your head down and just staying the course can work, too. But definitely give yourself some credit for your efforts! Time spent counts as work even if you don’t have the pages you wish you did to show for it. Six hours of working is still six hours of working! And in fact I think it’s even more worthy of credit when it’s this hard than if you’d had words flying from your fingertips and sentences writing themselves.
thanks, guys. still in the muck and mire but inching along, inching along…