I can't address the necklace, but it seems to me that things will still be okay if you don't finish the book. Your contributions to the world aren't measured by and don't rely upon this single project.
(Have you tried writing something short and unrelated, or is that merely distracting? Sometimes trying too hard to press something into existence can kill a writing project temporarily, whichever sort of writing it is.)
Yah, I sometimes have to write YA stuff in the middle of big long serious adult projects. Not that I'm not serious about YAs, because I am, but they feel smaller than me in my head, and adult stuff feels a lot bigger than me. I don't know if you have that problem, but your book feels a lot bigger than me, and it doesn't even live in my head. For some people, this would be a distraction or additional pressure (because there were days when I was writing two books that wouldn't book, oh joy); you'd know better than I.
Just checking - you had a post the other day where you just needed to vent and didn't want reassurances. :)
My view is - even if you never wrote another book again, you'd find something else to do. You seem both very resourceful and creative. I know you identify yourself as a writer, but it doesn't mean it's the *only* thing you can do. And even if you don't finish this book, it doesn't mean you won't get struck by another idea down the road, and write that story instead. Or write this story at another time, when it speaks to you better.
I don't know how you felt about the first two, while you were writing them. How does this compare, in terms of your attitude about it? Do you feel maybe you're trying too hard, that there's too much sense of "I have to do this"? Or did you feel that way about the others, too? It just seems to me that the sense of pressure isn't helping. Did you struggle the same to hear Elias' voice in the beginning? Or the voices in EHR? I ask just because although I know you've put in a lot of work on this project already, if it's not clicking in your head, does that mean perhaps another project would be better? Or is this common in book-writing and just needs to be worked through?
(Side note: Start sending your daughters to bed 15 minutes earlier for every time they interrupt you while you're writing. I suspect they'll stop that right off.)
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(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-22 07:41 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-22 08:21 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-22 08:37 pm (UTC)(Have you tried writing something short and unrelated, or is that merely distracting? Sometimes trying too hard to press something into existence can kill a writing project temporarily, whichever sort of writing it is.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-23 05:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-23 03:51 am (UTC)My view is - even if you never wrote another book again, you'd find something else to do. You seem both very resourceful and creative. I know you identify yourself as a writer, but it doesn't mean it's the *only* thing you can do. And even if you don't finish this book, it doesn't mean you won't get struck by another idea down the road, and write that story instead. Or write this story at another time, when it speaks to you better.
I don't know how you felt about the first two, while you were writing them. How does this compare, in terms of your attitude about it? Do you feel maybe you're trying too hard, that there's too much sense of "I have to do this"? Or did you feel that way about the others, too? It just seems to me that the sense of pressure isn't helping. Did you struggle the same to hear Elias' voice in the beginning? Or the voices in EHR? I ask just because although I know you've put in a lot of work on this project already, if it's not clicking in your head, does that mean perhaps another project would be better? Or is this common in book-writing and just needs to be worked through?
(Side note: Start sending your daughters to bed 15 minutes earlier for every time they interrupt you while you're writing. I suspect they'll stop that right off.)
(no subject)
Date: 2004-09-23 05:06 am (UTC)