Flow my words.

For the almost the first time since I started on this latest kick of writing, I'm having a little trouble keeping it going.  I've had almost a year where the words just flowed.

Hell, it's almost a relief.  I was beginning to think it was too easy.

The last blockage I had, which only lasted a week or two was when I got to the dire happenings in the last half of Led to the Slaughter.  How do I depict the day to day misery and decline?  When I decided on using a diary format, it was off the races again.

Of course, the worst blockage I had was two years ago when I got about a third of the way through Nearly Human and stalled.  That took months to overcome.  I finally overcame it by forcing a plot on it.  From the outside.  An artificial plot.

Of course, this being fiction, all plots are artificial.  But this was induced more by a conscious desire to finish the book than to find an organic way.

I can't be sorry I did it, really.  I finished the book and that made it easier to start the next book and the next.  But I also swore I'd never force a plot again.

So is that what I'm doing now?

Not quite the same, I think.  I'm forcing the writing, the flow of words.  But the plot and theme are pretty clear to me and seem to be coming naturally.  They just aren't coming in a flow of words.

I had a major distraction, which I won't go into -- but it really threw me.  It was a self-inflicted distraction at that.  I should have known better.

So now, I'm sort of forcing the writing hoping that the flow will come back.  So far, not so much, though the last half of the last chapter actually flowed pretty well.

So maybe it's happening...