I hate losing the plot.
Even when I’ve planned/mapped/charted and sometimes even illustrated my character’s conflict-laden steps to her epiphany, she still manages to wander off-course.
Make that Muse obey
How could she DO that to me?
What invisible tides are at work in my subconscious, I wonder, as I grapple with, bludgeon cruelly, or just plain delete, word-riffs that refuse to carry my story along its predestined path?
My writing efforts lately have been less an act of creativity then an exercise in smack-down pro-wrestling.
I’ve tried writing around the problem. I’ve left the story to percolate and come back to it. I’ve procrastinated like the true professional by reading other blogs, taking voyeuristic meanderings through You Tube and prowling Facebook: it is no good. I cannot avoid the truth – there are no up-beat, how-to and go-getting answers on how to bring a wayward muse back from her uncharted country.
The answer, of course, is to simply get on with it, and if one story is not working, move on to another. It’s not as if there’s any shortage on the back-burner.
Truth, and the rewrite.
But I just can’t let this one alone, and not only because I already have a wonderful cover for her story. She’s trying to tell me something; so I should listen.
And here I am, having embarked on the proverbial circumnavigation, back at the point where I started. At least I have written something today, and reminded myself of the truth: that it is the journey that matters.
Hiya Lyn ~ Are you able to write regularly again? I find the only way I can make it work is to sit down to write at the same time every days (first thing in the morning works best for me, and I’m not full of other people’s crap words yet). Whenever I get regular, after a week or two the magic starts happening.
Hey D! “Truncated” is the word for my writing time. I’m on “mum radar”, so if I try to get up early and write, for example, I get company. But that’s okay, it’s just the stage that my life is in at the moment and I’m very happy to have the love. What is really happening though, is my writing style is undergoing a change. It’s rather a fascinating process, but also very frustrating and not without pain. I’ve left off three projects so far (that is since end-November last year) simply because the stories, though interesting for me, are derivative … the person and voice that I’m using is no longer the person that I am. They’re the type of stories I wrote before I had undergone any number of personal epiphanies. I guess what I’m undergoing is a “voice-and-style-metamorphoses”. As we all know from experience, I have to put in the time and effort to get the stories “out”, before what my Muse is trying to make me do actually comes through (if it ever does). In other words, I feel the change, it just hasn’t happened yet, but I remain hopeful. I’m not even sure if this makes any sense, but since only my friends read my blog, I feel safe in putting it out there. So, the short answer is yes, I write regularly but only when I can, and that’s okay. What’s more, don’t you love this portrait of my Muse? Thank goodness for a free internet! 😉 xoxo -L.