I remain stuck on Woman in White. I can’t quite seem to see what comes next. Have I felt this way before? I think I did, both with Gamer and Demons & Battleskirts, I just can’t figure out how I resolved the issue.
Although, with the other two, I think I had more of a connection to the protagonist. Nia is… I don’t know if she’s that difficult or that she’s that simple. She doesn’t seem to want anything, other than to fulfil her promise to Pau.
I don’t know if it’s my critical voice getting involved (okay, so we already know that it is involved, we just haven’t figure out how exactly) or if there really is a sticking point with the story. Have I put too much importance on the story, built it up in my brain and now… Now the expectations are getting to me? Stage fright?
I would really be much more comfortable if I could just get the words out. I want to (and here comes a telling critical voice phrase) get it done so that I can get on to the next thing. Not in an “oh god, I’m totally over this now” sort of way but in a “so many ideas! so little time!” kind of way.
There are so many things I want to write and I continually feel that I’m holding myself up, that I could write faster, write more.
That is totally critical voice being led on by expectations. My rather high expectations fed by what other authors accomplish, which is something that I have been reminded time and again not to do. Hell, I even tell other people not to do that, and yet here is me, not taking my own advice.
How do I get over it though? I can write like this, steam of consciousness style, at a rather rapid clip. How do I get to this stage (or really fucking close to it) with the fiction? How is it not as easy to make up a story as it is to journal?
What do I do to release whatever the fucking blockage is?
I guess I should go back and take WMG’s Critical Voice workshop again, to refresh my memory. After that… practise with some other fiction? Flash works well. Something that I haven’t spent way to long think about. Something that is dashed off with no thought as to how it fits into whatever other works I have in the works.
That sounds like a plan, although not a plan that I really want to launch into right now.
Right now, I want to write Woman in White and the blank brain is giving me the shits. My hair is standing on end from dragging my hands through it so much.
Grrrr.
Should I start writing another part of the book? What part of the book do I not already know what happens? (<– oooo, and is that another little crack for critical voice to get in? Am I, even without an outline, still following an outline??) Seems like I need to do something wacky. Blow shit up. Invite the aliens (the spaceship kind) and wreck the hell out of this joint. But how? Where?
I still don’t know. Still can’t see, but that’s the whole point. The not seeing. Let us not see out way out of the bag and have fun along the way.
Now there’s a plan.