In Search Of An Answer For Fear Of Writing.

This weekend has been bad for my word count. Saturday I was busy all day, so didn't get anything done. Today, have written maybe 6,000 words, but also cut and edited about 4,000 words. So while the story is much better, don't feel like I've accomplished much word count wise. This is made worse by the fact that I'm sort of stuck. I know I need another action scene for chapter 3 because otherwise I have too much talking between two and four, but there is nothing that needs to happen. I then have pretty much only the last section to write, and I still don't know what is going to happen or where to end. 

However, as I never know where I'm going, what this really means is that I've become afraid. I'm afraid that my story is boring. That it won't have an interesting climatic ending, maybe because my characters don't have it in them. Despite waking me to tell me that the detention scene should be the climatic ending, they haven't as yet told me how. 

I have wondered if this is a symptom of trying to write it too fast, or whether it is just a natural part of all stories?

In search of an answer, I've just started what promises to be a brilliant book on being a writer, as recommended by lots of people. It's Dorothea Brande's 'On Becoming A Writer'. She wrote it in the 1930's, so you can download free copies of it from the web.

The major difference between this and a lot of books on writing, so she promises in her introduction, is that she is not focused on writing technique. She argues that even before you need to worry about any of those types of issues, you need to deal with the psychological problems of actually turning yourself into a writer, a person so reliant on undefinable elements that most are scared off before they can even properly begin. Roadblocks such as mine have no clear way forward, as they sing to the writer that the answer might just be the writer or the story's no good, or that the writer doesn't have what it takes so should stop now.

This appears to be the perfect book at the perfect moment. Unfortunately, I haven't had time to read it because I've been busy going over my own work.

So, I'm going to take the rest of tonight off, I'm going to read some of what Dorothea has to say and tomorrow I'm going to start on the new scenes that I need. I am not going to go over any more of my old work until I have finished all that I have to write. Then, hopefully, I will have a day or two before the end of the week in which to look over it. If not, I'll move onto the next one and just hope that I get it done on time.

I will summarise anything I learn from Dorothea (yes, I do just love saying the name) in a following post.

Good night and sleep tight.

Buffy.