Ugh, what to do.

What the ...?! I've returned to my writing this morning, hopeful of finding it waiting for me looking all lovely and exciting and GOOD. Usually, when I've had a little break from my novel because I hate it, I re-read it and it sounds really rather good. This time? Nah. It's crap. I'm very dismayed. The first four chapters are still fine, because they've never changed for months. But the last two chapters I wrote are horrendously dull. I've lost my mojo with this project, I really have. I can't find what it was that inspired me to write it in the first place. It's been dragging on for so long - all my own fault for not pulling my finger out and getting it written two years ago, of course - that it's like a heavy weight around my neck. Maybe I should just file it away and look at it again in a few years. I keep coming back to it, but I can't write it. I don't know if it's beyond me, or if I just don't like the story any more. But I don't think it is beyond me - like I said, the first few chapters are good, I'm very proud of them. They're not perfect, but I've been looking forward to redrafting them.

Hmmm. I'm not sure what to do at all. It's difficult to keep writing when you know that what you're producing is rubbish - it seems like a terrible waste of time to keep writing dross, when I could be spending my time more productively, developing a better idea.

Ah, but now I'm thinking about the research on supernatural beings that I was doing before Easter. There was some good stuff in there. I'd found out about some very interesting demons and demi-gods that would fit beautifully into my story; there was a wealth of characters to choose from in that Encyclopedia of Spirits that I'd been dipping into, and I could imagine some of them really giving a lift to the story in helping me to develop new directions and twists. So perhaps I'm being dramatic again? Do I need to work through the problem I'm having with my boring protagonist, and make him better? Should I persist, or give up on it as a bad job, and move on to something new and fresh? I know the answer really. Of course I should persist - otherwise the last two years' worth of research and writing have been for nothing! (That's rubbish isn't it? Five chapters in two years?! Well, I haven't actually been writing non-stop for two years - mostly I've just been thinking and fleshing out ideas. But it's still not good - I should bloody well get my head together and get on with it and stop moaning and be more focused and be more positive and drag myself out of this stupid lull.)

:) Right, thanks for that bit of therapy. I'll get back to it now. I know what to do. I'm going to fix my hero (might even change him into a girl actually, that might work better), and make him more bad - he's too good and nice right now. Thanks very much, friends - how much do I owe you for this session? Same time next week?

Lost my words again.

I'm posting today, just because I haven't posted for a few days. I haven't thought of anything nice to write about, because I've lost my words again. It's a strange thing, losing your words. You don't have any warning about it, you just wake up one morning and they're not there. You know they're around somewhere, but they're just out of sight - as if there's a big boulder right before your eyes, and you know they're hiding behind it, but you can see them and you can't see the boulder either. It's all invisible. But I find that I'm getting them back again quicker now that I know what to do about it. When I used to lose my words I would just spend a lot of time watching telly or doing nothing in particular, waiting for them to come back. But they always took a very long time to come back that way, and I would feel guilty for having spent so many days/weeks achieving absolutely nothing. Now I know that the only really proper way of finding them again is to get looking, and by that I mean that you have to just write something down. It's probably a right lot of crap that you're going to write, but it doesn't matter because it gets all the crap out of the front of your mind, and makes way for the words that got lost. That's what I have to do anyway - other people have different ways of getting over a word-drought.

I'm finding that I'm repeating myself all over the place at the moment, and that often leads to the words retreating to a secret hideaway pretty sharpish. I've got several places to write about myself, you see. I have a diary for writing in by hand, I have this blog, and I have a Book of Ahievements (in which I write about something good that I've done every day). And I have a penpal too, and I write pretty long letters to her - all about ME! So writing about myself can get a bit repetitive at times, especially if I'm not up to much. And now, Noomski and my mum have given me a challenge. We each have a beautiful, new, dinky little Moleskine Japanese concertina notebook. Noomski has to draw on every page of his, my mum has to write a poem, and I have to write prose. Getting the ideas is the hard part. I think their tasks are less challenging than mine, because they will find it easier to be interesting - though perhaps the execution of the idea will be more difficult for them, and involve more skill. But what am I going to write about?? I really have no idea. I have decided on something to write about three times, but have ended up dismissing each topic on the grounds that it was very dull. I thought about finding out about something new that I'd never thought of before, and writing about that. But that would end up being a quick search on Wikipedia once a day, and a quick copying down of random bits of information that would not stick in my head anyway. That wouldn't really be learning, just regurgitating. So, I think it's going to have to be to do with observation - I need to find something around me to write about. Perhaps I could choose a subject, and make up a backstory for it. I could sit in town, and watch one person for ten minutes (if they would keep still long enough - or I might have to follow them; but then I might get arrested for stalking!). Then I could give them a family (not no family at all), an occupation, something sensational that they do that is completely removed from reality perhaps. And I could do a little sketch of them, or a little doodle of what that person made me feel like for that ten minutes. I know I'm not the one doing the drawing, but this challenge is about creating a beautiful book. To me a beautiful book is full of words! But perhaps it would be enhanced by a bit of colour.

I haven't got a word block as far as my novel is concerned. That's coming along nicely. I wrote a chapter last week, and am well on the way with the next one. I should be able to finish it now that I've actually got a fully fleshed out synopsis, and an ending. I've got lots of characters that I care about, and I've got lots of ideas for scenes. It's amazing what a little book like Novelist's Boot Camp can do! What a splendid book that is - I'm so very pleased that I bought it. I just wished I'd read it last year. I could have had a finished manuscript by now. But no matter really - I'm doing it now, and that's the main thing. Todd A. Stone, the author of the Boot Camp, is very inspiring, and very, very funny. I laugh out loud a lot when I'm reading his drill instructions - he keeps telling me to get down and do some push-ups, and I do! He tells me to go and make a character list, so I do. He tells me to write a synopsis, using this, this, this and this to achieve the objective, so I do. I like his no nonsense approach - stop whingeing and snivelling, do not sit about being airy-fairy, get on with it and do push-ups. It's ace! No-one gets a book written by mooching around and day-dreaming. People get books written by writing down words. D'uh!

Ah, I feel refreshed now. I found a few words :) Now to get on with Chapter Five!