Saturday, October 20, 2018

Well and truly stuck.

I'm stuck at 38,000 words with "Eden's Return."

This is rare for me. It's happened a couple of times before, but in both cases I was aware of the problem and was just trying to figure out a solution. This time I'm not sure what is wrong.

Went on my walk yesterday fully expecting to break through, but managed only about 500 words. By the time I got home I realized that I'd have to throw the whole scene out.

I'm not going to push this. I'm going to try to tease out the proper solution. Give my subconscious time to come up with it.



I was telling Linda I was stuck, and then I said, "I want the story to go like this..."

I detailed the rest of the plot, and she chuckled and said, "I LIKE it!"

So there it is. I've cut the Gordian Knot.



But the problem hasn't been the plot. That I've had pretty firmly in mind. That and the themes. It's the "filler" that I'm having trouble with. All those little details that make up a story. I've always been able to come up with stuff, but right now I'm having trouble visualizing scenes.

So I'm not sure if I'm "unstuck" or not.

I can just push forward with the bare bones of the plot as a placeholder and come back in a month to try to fill in, but I'd prefer to have a nicely fleshed out story to start with.

I'm going to give it a few days to see if the words start flowing.

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