by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner
So, I’m deep within what is called the “fun and games” part of this novel and it’s a real struggle. It’s a struggle because, lulz, I have no idea what I’m doing. I need a few more scenes featuring investigation into the murder near the beginning of the novel and I’m really grasping at straws as to how to do that.
I just don’t know.
I think this is going to be solved like it’s always solved — by me pausing for a day or two to distract myself. They say writers find inspiration via “BBB” — bed, bath and bus. And I’ve found this to be very accurate. I get some of my best ideas while I in the shower or driving around thinking about something else.
Fortunately, I have several different characters I can use to do this investigation, so it’s just an issue of figuring out who and what they’re going to investigate.
I keep moving scenes around at an alarming rate, but, thankfully, I’m also writing a lot of scenes, too, so it’s not like I’m actively avoiding writing or anything.
What I have been actively avoiding, to date, is reading. I hate that. I know I can make this novel so much better by really throwing myself into reading all these books I have in my small and growing library….but I don’t wanna.
I don’t wanna read. I just want to daydream, develop and write. It’s just really hard for me to consume media when I’m totally consumed by producing media. But at some point I’m going to get over myself and start reading. They say if you have time to write you have time to read.
So, I have to start reading.
I have to stop punting on the reading front. I know this first novel has a lot of potential and the only way I’m going to take it to the next level is to, a minimum, flesh out my characters by doing some much needed reading to give them some sort of world view that isn’t just an expression of a side of my own mind.
I want to make my heroine have a very specific ideology that isn’t just mine in drag and that’s going to take forcing myself to go outside my comfort zone and read up on some things I just don’t believe in so SHE will believe in them.
But, in general, things are going well. I only have, in real terms, a handful of scenes I have to figure out before I can get down to writing and hopefully finish the “fun and games” portion of the novel and get into the “bad guys close in” portion of the work.
