Idea wall

Hello all,

Hope you had a lovely Easter break. I did. After giving up chocolate for Lent, I congratulated myself for getting throught the forty-day stint by eating every single chocolate-related item I could lay my hands on <sigh>  But I've calmed down now.

As always, I continue down my path of self harm by writing. I am editing the first draft of my novel which I have had to admit to myself, is far from the complete story. I stopped where I thought the first book should end. I therefore have to ask: Can I call it a first draft if the story itself (the trilogy such as I thought it was going to be) is not complete?

I am reading and listening to every writing advice blog/podcast that I can get my impatient mitts on. Mur Lafferty's advice to 'let yourself write a crappy book', often keeps me from chucking the whole work (laptop included), out of my first floor window. It is okay that I don't think it's very good. I need to remember that and focus on the fact that I can edit, add, remove and embellish in my own time. There's no rush; no agent standing on my neck while waving deadlines in front of my rapidly diminishing vision.

The main problem with the work at the moment is that I can't 'see' it. It seems to me that because I
haven't held it in my hands it doesn't really exist. The whole world - characters, setting and plot seems very two dimensional. Also, because I have hit a block in my reading wherein, I can't focus on another book without thinking 'I should be writing' (thanks, Mur -_-); I am unable to go back to the books I have loved, the ones that drew me into their worlds and make me live the experience, and study what made them so enthralling.

I want to finish the book first; complete the story, no matter how mangled, then learn how the greats managed to leave their own everlasting marks on me.

I need to finish it. In order to help me feel my story in  three dimensions, I am going to print out all the current pages and stick them on my wall. Maybe when I finally touch the pages in paper, it will become more real for me than it is now, stuck behind a screen. Maybe. I have to try. And I have to keep writing because if I do, one day I might become a very successful write. But if I stop, that will never be a possibility.

Happy writing and blissful to all.