This week, it’s felt like I’m not making any progress with writing at all. The words just aren’t coming, as, sometimes, they won’t. I’ve come down off the giddy high of completing a chapter, only to find that the one I need to write next is different enough from the first that I almost need to relearn what I’m doing. And I’m not going to lie… it’s a little frustrating.
And yet, despite the lack of a climbing wordcount to provide evidence that I have, indeed, been working at this recalcitrant beast of a novel, it hasn’t all been a waste. Because aside from the different pacing causing me some trouble, every time I get stuck it’s been an indication that I don’t have things structured and plotted and planned as well as I thought I did.
So I’ve been going back and outlining and answering all those niggling little questions that keep pulling me up short: “Is that really how the captain of a bunch of bold outriders respond to that situation? Or is that how I think I would/ought to respond to it? What exactly is the method of government in this fictional kingdom thingy? And how big is it?
And there, I have made progress. Organizational progress. And while I fully admit to having, at times, used such things as an excuse to keep from doing the so-called actual work of writing, for once, that’s not true. Because while I may have not made it much farther, at least every question I’ve answered has made the next sentence a little easier to write.
F.A. Hakimian 