Second guessing myself

[pegkerr]

Have been thinking about the ice palace book, and why I haven't been working on it. Figured some stuff out today. I found myself thinking, with more than a twinge of impatience, that I seem to be able to come up with more reasons not to be writing than any writer I know.

Part of it is just real life stuff. My computer crashed just after Wiscon, I lost my writing time when summer daycare costs went up and I had to go back to full time, Rob was working that crazy schedule, the girls have needed attention, I had a fun project that sucked away a lot of creative energy, the house is an attention hog. Etcetera, etcera. But I started thinking about it today, and came to the conclusion, it's more than that.

First of all there's an old problem that I've been aware of for quite a while. I've written two books, Emerald House Rising, and The Wild Swans. The first one I thought was a pretty respectable journeyman effort. Not spectacular, but perhaps a bit above average. The second one I really cared about, and I'm quite proud of it. In my more confident moods, I flip through it, and I think, you know, this is damned good. I've had readers praise both my books, but they're especially complimentary about Swans.

Well, that's terrific, yes? Every writer would like to be able to say that: "I wrote something excellent." But when you're a writer like me, who struggles with issues of self-confidence, it raises a particular problem that may not be immediately obvious, and it's this:

How can I possibly follow that? How do I move forward from that achievement? How do I do something even better? Can I? Or am I just a one-book (or in my case, a two-book) wonder?

As I said, I've been aware of this issue. I had actually started a prequel to Emerald House Rising, and I gave it up after 70 pages, thinking, "I don't want to do this, it's not fun. It's just not as good as Swans." I flailed around miserably for almost four years before I hit upon the idea for this ice palace book. And I was so excited when I started writing and the ideas seemed to be flowing. At last. I'm writing again. I haven't lost it after all.

But today, I realized that my back brain (as Lois calls the creative mostly unconscious part of the imagination) is avoiding writing because it's unhappy. The real life stuff has only been a convenient excuse. And it comes back to my old nemesis, plot.

I hate plotting, and I don't think I'm very good at it. Individual scenes I can write easily. Dialogue is a snap. Overall structure is much more difficult. Where are these characters going? I love thinking/talking about structure in other people's books, but seem to have a blind spot in my creative process when I attempt to dream up my own. Maybe the reason my second book was so much better than my first was that I stole someone else's plot!

Anyway: I was thinking structure today, and I saw consciously for the first time what my back brain probably realized a while ago: the plot structure to the ice palace book that I've constructed so far is much too similar to the plot structure of Emerald House Rising. And I don't mean that in a good way. Worse, I realize that I've duplicated some of my worst first-novel errors from that book. Like that the climax of both books is to get a group of people into an exotic place (literally, a palace in both books) and the villain explains to everyone his cunning plan. And gets defeated, and that releases the person close to the protagonist who is under a spell.

The more I thought about it, the more I saw structural similarities, one after another. And my reaction was my god . . . yuck! I don't want to do this all over again. It would be like chewing used chewing gum. I've done this already."

So what the hell do I do?

The individual scenes I've written so far are good. I read bits of the book at a reading at Nimbus, and people liked them. What I have to figure out here is whether this is just I'm-in-the-middle-of-a-book-and-that-means-I want-to-do-something-else-hell-even-sorting-socks-would-be-more-interesting? Or does this mean I-have-to-completely-rethink-everything? Maybe even throw most of my plot away and figure out how to start all over again? There's this architect with a daughter and there's this ice palace, and there's summer and winter magic. And???

This is awfully discouraging.

Peg

Comments

Sounds like--

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

--a definite visit from the suck monkey. There is no known cure except critical acclaim, unfortunately.

I'm currently working on my seventh one of the damned things (not counting the four that I never finished, or finished in only one exceeding sucky draft of juvenilia). I haven't yet *sold* any of them, mind you--but I've noticed that there are themes I re-use. I seem to tell outsider stories a lot, for example. I'm not sure it's a bad thing to do that: I mean, we can only write the books I believe in.

But I do notice that (it seems to me) Wild Swans is structurally a more challenging/complex work, with its interwoven/complimentary plots. So it seems to me that backing away from that complexity may not be the best idea, and maybe you should be pushing it?

Of course, having no idea what you're working on, I'm talking out of a nonoral orifice. *g*

But if you're worried about repeating yourself, it seems to me that the way to avoid it is to depart as much as possible from what you have already done.

[aome.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how to answer the "plot is similar" problem, although many readers like familiar structures. However, the book should be written for YOU, so if you are unhappy doing that, then it won't work.

My thoughts on the "how can I top WS" problem are more straightforward - why do you have to? I mean, yes, we all continue to grow as writers, and that's as it should be. But I also think we can write on a *par* with ourselves for a while, with perhaps modest improvements in style or phrasing or plot, but without being something markedly, ueber over prior productions. WS was something special, and something quite different in the way it interwove the two stories, one of which was an existing fairy tale. I'm actually thinking it might not be so inappropriate for this third book to more reflect the first one, not in producing another 'journeyman' level book, but in the *framework* and overall style. It's a single-world story, although this one is set in a 'real' place, rather than a wholly fictitious one. The troubles the characters faced in WS were VERY different.

I suppose this sounds disheartening. I'm not suggesting you repeat yourself (especially if that makes you unhappy) but just that you not make overharsh demands of yourself. Perhaps writing this book will give you a chance to explore some of the similar themes that you've already picked out from EHR, but to give them more polish, complexity, or some other flair that you've learned over the years and that, in doing so, it will be 'topping' your prior works.

As for working on overall plot - do you have someone you can be talking this through with? Perhaps what they could do is just echo back what you trying to discuss, and you will be able to see it and dissect it better that way, by treating it as more coming from *them*, even if it isn't.

Am v. tired and probably have run-on sentences and ideas that don't make any sense or help at all, especially since the longest thing I *ever* wrote was 77 pages, and that was a bloody miracle. Just my thoughts.

[vaneramos.livejournal.com]

Peg, I want to thank you for the image of dropping a stone down a deep well and waiting for the sound. I've been thinking about how we can apply that to many endeavours of the heart like love, or raising children. It's most wonderful.

These comments about your back brain are helpful, too. I worked on a novel throughout my teens and started working on it again while I was married, but it has sat practically untouched for years now. Sometimes I hear the characters calling me to pay attention to them again. I think I have to rework the plot so it is meaningful to the person I have become. It's difficult because I feel drawn away from fantasy, but the characters belong in a fantasy, and I'm deeply attached to them. The Wild Swans has made the fantasy genre seem more accessible to me again.

It has also suggested ways of presenting gay characters. None of my old characters were gay; that would have been unthinkable when I was younger. Perhaps I can bring them back into my active imagination by letting one or more of them be gay.

[splagxna.livejournal.com]

this reminds me of what my roommate realized about her struggle to lose weight. she finally discerned that she was afraid to do it because it was easier to not be as much as she could be. i never quite understood what she was saying - but it resonates.

i wish you luck.

[vass]

My advice is, you might be avoiding writing or coming up with excuses, or hate plotting, but don't beat yourself up about it. I mean, face it, sure, but don't get mad at yourself for it. I'm not an expert on third novels, but I do know that, having identified the behaviour pattern, getting mad is not an effective way to change it. I don't know if you are doing that, I just know it's something to warn against.

[mangosong.livejournal.com]

Thank you for sharing this. I can relate to so much of what you say, even though I have never to date written anything longer than an unfinished chaptered fanfic. I completely understand what you mean by the "how can I top this" feeling. I went to journalism graduate school, and while I was there I had two opinion articles published in the San Francisco Chronicle. I got tremendously positive feedback. I was terrified. I completely stopped writing. So I applaud you for starting something else, because I know how trememdously difficult it can be to cope with writerly success.

I also understand your plot problem. I have plans for a fantasy novel kicking around in my head that has not seen the light of day because I can't really come up with a plot. I can do characters, I love dialogue, and if you tell me to write a scene that goes from Point A to Point B, I'll be happy to oblige... but ask me to write a plot outline and I'll be hiding under the carpet.

Wish I had answers, but I'm just grateful to see that someone else feels the same way I do.

(By the way, I've never properly introduced myself in your LJ... I'm Ali, and I write unfinished H/Hr fics when I'm not changing diapers for my 3-month-old.)

[fathoming.livejournal.com]

Star Wars and Return of the Jedi are essentially the same plot and story, and even begin and progress in the same locations. Does that mean Return of the Jedi shouldn't have been made?

I had writer's block for seven years. I started the same novel over and over. And all I can think now when I look over what I wrote then is, "What did I think was so wrong with this? Why didn't I just keep working on it? Every version is fine," and the first was probably the best.

I know what you're going through, though, and it's hard. Best of luck.

[bookshop.livejournal.com]

Mary Fahl--is that Mary from the October Project?

It's certainly a much much smaller scale, but I often wonder if I can live up to reader expectation while working on the second half of my fic (the first part, which I guess you could say is well-liked, ends on a terrible cliff-hanger and it has been so long since I updated that the pressure to produce something worthy of the wait is terrible.) I worry that I can't continue to express myself with the same fluency and passion as my story heads in totally new directions.

Whenever I have questions about the quality of my voice, as a writer or a singer, I come back to one of my favorite lines by Stephen Sondheim (from the musical Sunday in the Park: "anything you do, let it come from you, then it will be new--give us more to see." I tend to stick closely by that sentiment. And I really don't think that you stole someone else's plot by any means in The Wild Swans, because only you could have taken those two stories and woven them together with such craft and deftness and multi-layered meaning. That was your voice coming through. I suspect you should trust it and trust your instinct, whether it tells you to forge ahead or to completely restructure your plot. I think you are second-guessing yourself without real cause. But maybe I am saying that because I too am in my middle-of-the-book phase and what I really want to do is write the end and skip the middle, or come back later, or, or something, so I am trying to convince myself as well as you that we are on the right track. :)

I am still upset that I missed your reading on Sunday. I hope to rectify it someday and hear you read in person.

In all cases, best of luck. ♥

[aynjel.livejournal.com]

So what I keep hearing is that the process for writing every book is different... with the remarkable exception of the visits from the suck monkey about a third of the way in, and again about 2/3rds of the way in. Up until a third of the way in, you've got great ideas, great characters, and then you realize that they've got to Get To The End Somehow. And suddenly everything sucks.

I'm very nearly there now with the novel I started in January (which is frustrating because if I'm lucky, I've got 20,000 words on it). I haven't touched it in two months because... because there's the voice in the back of my head saying, It sucks! and telling me I need to rethink it, re do it, or give up. Heck, I wanted to rewrite GM from the ground up a month ago even though in January I was ready to just shove it out the door and hope that it didn't trip over its shoelaces.

I think that sometimes you just have to write it. You can go back and fix problems, but sometimes you never know if the problems you see now really are problems until you actually get to the end. And if you're not at the end, then there's still an opportunity to change the problems you see coming up.

My guess is, though, that you'll get to the end and go back through and realize that you knew what you were doing all along, even if you didn't trust that initially.

As far as re-using plot/theme... it happens. We write the things we want to read and we write the things that we care about. You can fix the 'first-novel errors' when you revise. You can't ever get to 'revise' (not really) unless you finish.

Granted, if you do feel like you're writing the same novel all over again and you don't want to, then you've got a whole other problem that may lead back to the "I'm a third/halfway into it and it sucks" problem that lots of people run into...

Not sure if that helps or not... *hug*

[oracne.livejournal.com]

What she said.

The best piece of advice I ever got came from Greg Frost (he'd gotten it from someone else): Give yourself permission to write crap.

Because the draft is almost always crap. But if you don't finish a draft, you can't do a rewrite; and fix the problems--I've also been told the problems are easier to see if you have a WHOLE draft. So maybe you could write using a basic plot, and then on a rewrite add in more complexity.

I find the whole "writing crap" thing difficult, but rewarding in terms of word count. I goad myself with the promise of rewrites.

The new book won't be WILD SWANS. All books are different, and I think they have to be written in different ways. Maybe you could think about ways in which this book is different from the previous two, and then the similarities won't seem to glaring.

You probably know all this already, but I like people to tell me things more than once...

[sternel.livejournal.com]

hrm. well, from the perspective of a voracious reader who dabbles in writing--

the thing I enjoyed most about both EHR and TWS was your characterisations, Elias especially. If the characters are good, are really good, I don't give two hoots if the story's been done before. The interesting part, for me, is seeing how these characters deal with it. That is what captured me during your Nimbus reading -- even from just the snippets we got to hear, there's incredible depth in these characters. I do want to know what happens to them, but that's because I want to know what it will do to them, and how they got that way.

Granted, this doesn't solve your plot problem, I know. But I just wonder, even if it's structurally similiar, doesn't the fact that you are working in a new setting, with new characters, count for anything? Solveig (am I spelling that right?) seemed very different, to me, from all your other characters, especially in light of the ice-skating scene you read. You showed us Solveig's childhood in a detail that you didn't really use in your other books, and you're writing her from a very different period in her life -- she just feels like a very different person to me than Eliza or Jena, for all that she fits into that 'strong/independent woman' archtype.
I suppose I'm just saying, in my usual long-winded fashion, why not let your mind run with it? I cannot for the life of me remember who came up with that line about there being only five real stories that just keep getting told over and over again, but we all keep reading, because people come up with new ways to tell them, right?

hoping i've been at least somewhat helpful,
Sternel, who really enjoyed the Nimbus reading

[jbru.livejournal.com]

I completely sympathize with you re: plotting. When I'm pushing around story ideas I often create these wonderful characters and even some snappy scenes (dialog is still an issue for me); often, however, they have nothing to do. Lovely people, beautiful scenery, quite content where they are. Grr.

The results of a recent exercise I gave to myself, however, have been quite different. I now have a plot skeleton and am in search of a character to put into it. I'm quite excited to see what Fred (the word for back brain I borrowed from Damon Knight) comes up with for a protagonist.

I don't feel qualified to give you advice and so can only offer encouragement. I'm sure you'll find a way through this and write something you love and are proud of. If it isn't your Ice Palace novel, it'll be something else. Keep at it!

[delirieuse.livejournal.com]

Having spent far too much of the last few months procrastinating and not-writing, I empathise. I hope this gets easier for you as you go along. Although I haven't read Emerald House Rising, I've loved what you've posted of the characters, story and backstage of your current project.

All I can think of to get you out of your funk is that maybe you should introduce a rogue element. Perhaps if you introduced another subplot, or character (however minor), or incident into what's happened so far, you can shake it up for yourself dramatically enough that you can write it again.

Maybe (and pardon what is I'm sure an insufferable ignorance of the plot) that instead of having the chief villain explain the plan in the palace, the plan is explained (in pieces) much earlier on, and it takes a small (or even large clue) to get it all pieced together later. Perhaps you can change the role of the palace in the climaxing scenes.

I hope this has been of some help. Good luck with moving on from here. xx

[angeyja.livejournal.com]

I have no idea how to answer the "plot is similar" problem, although many readers like familiar structures.

At it's deepest level almost all books follow a similar structure. ;-) As a reader, this doesn't particularly bother me.

However, the book should be written for YOU, so if you are unhappy doing that, then it won't work.

There are I think variations on this as there are writers: why books are written and who they are written for. There are as many ways of moving past or toward writers blocks as there are writers also. I understand from her web page that Robin McKinley has a box full of work on a book set in the same world as The Blue Sword for seven years, probably more now, since that was written some time ago. She hasn't however given away the idea that that book will be written...it doens't necessarily want to be written or finished right now. And look at LeGuin and how the work has come and gone and morphed in Earthsea.

I think it's helpful to find a colleague that works in the same way as you or knows you really well to talk to. Some authors do have to slog the trenches that is simply part of their craft... the muse can be at times a harsh mistress. For others, it means it's time to put this aside and write something else and when your subconscious is ready the rest of this will come to you.

I draw, not write, and it's primarily faces. As I get somewhat older there are simply fewer faces that interest me. So finding the next subject in between projects can be quite times consuming and it's the major block. I have no quarrel with my eyes and hand and the mystery of what lies between the two.

The work always goes quickly at first; but there's inevitably a place in the piece (if I'm lucky it's only one) where I don't feel motivated to work on it. The funny thing is I have to just sit down and draw because that is not the place at which I can tell if it's any good or not. That place is later.

I'm a very intuitive artist, possibly because I have never studied formally, but most likely because this is simply the way it works for me. I don't know where I'm going with a piece when start. The muse doesn't speak to me that way. I don't force it or control it. I simply find a place to start and it flows through me. But that doesn't mean that there aren't those points, where I have to move past my doubts or rather my malaise! and continue. Within the work the muse comes back.

And I seem to design gardens the same way... with you know, the small difficulty that errors or misjudgements can't just be erased and redrawn or deleted and rewritten... some times I have to wait for spring. But most times I actually have to get out in it and feel that that apricot daylily has to be next to the purple liatris and then now there's a hole where some thing else has to be filled in and then that other bit...and then before you know it I'm dirt covered and the sun is setting but everything is back in balance and the "feel" is right again.

So this is just the style that works for me. I have to get in it and start doing it and then it comes.

I offer this not as a direction but just sharing of someone else's style. Your style may vary. I'm comfortable with me and the way this will work because... well, it's been this way for a long time, and so there's not that doubt "will I be able to finish it and will it be any good?" So the best thing might be to talk to people that are familar with you... and/or those that have like styles.

Now that I've droned on for so long, I do want to say the very best wishes at getting past through this. There's few things more painful for artists. Many good wishes. :-)

[heinous_bitca.livejournal.com]

I wish I knew what to say here, Peg. I suck at plotting myself (I can never come up with the overarching idea to go through a whole novel. I have scenes, here and there, but nothing to tie them together.

Hmm...I don't know if this is a possibility for you, but maybe working on shorter works for a while would be good. Something that doesn't demand a long plot, but a short story? I never thought I'd be good at shorter fiction, but fanfic writing has helped me realize that it's something I should try. Especially as I still can't plot!

Don't let the back brain discourage you. I get some of my best ideas from my back brain. I just don't realize it for a while. Admittedly, most of them have happened in role-playing games, but that's where my best plots come from, and I've learned to listen to it. So maybe you should acknowledge that it's unhappy, give the novel a rest for a bit, and go back when the back brain is ready? Because I think it will happen. That's what back brains are for...guiding us when we don't really realize it.

You need to do what makes you happy.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Do you need to know the whole plot before you write any more?

I guess maybe you do if you're going to write out of order, but if you started from the beginning and went on, maybe you could work it out a step at a time?

I think you have some good stuff that needs very delicate working with, and you've already changed some ideas for the better, than can keep happening.

The other thing is well, if stealing a plot works, steal a plot. I stole the plot for my dragon book -- actually it ended up being about a third of the plot, but I didn't know that when I started. And my other books have mythology there providing a useful spine, or maybe a better metaphor would be one of those stick things like saplings have.

You can do it.

[corinnethewise.livejournal.com]

::hugs:: Well, this isn't meant to be discouraging, but I don't think you can top Wild Swans. That is quite honestly the best book I have ever read. It is my favorite book, which I had never actually had before reading it. I could never choose before. It's a book that didn't make me want to escape from the real world to the one in the book. It made me want to embrace the real world and make it better. It quite honestly changed my life. I don't think that's beatable. I do however love EHR, and your journal, and what you've shown us of the new book and I think that they are wonderful. If you were to stop writing because you couldn't ever beat Wild Swans that would be like a Scientist quitting his research after winning the Nobel Prize. Maybe you'll never beat Swans, but you'll still produce some wonderful writing if you'll give yourself the chance. EHR was a completely different kind of book from Swans, and it was wonderful. I know that I personally would love to read a prequel to EHR, even if it's not "as good" as Swans. Please don't give up on your new book, or writing at all.

[kijjohnson.livejournal.com]

For me, writing block is always about blockages elsewhere, especially parts of my life I am either in denial about or feel powerless over. I wouldn't have said you were coming up with more reasons not to be writing than any writer I know, but I might say you are avoiding more parts of your life than many writers I know.

The plot thing? I wonder whether you have switched to the critical mind too soon. Because no plot is original; every plot is hackneyed if stripped of what makes it important and worthwhile -- the characters and realizations and language that drive it. Hamlet? "Hypersensitive son thinks his mother and her new husband are dissing his dead father by marrying so soon." Sounds like it's right out of pop lit-fic.

The great book in your past thing? Oh, do I feel your pain. I wrote FUDOKI anyway, and I think it's a good book, some people tell me a better book than the first -- but I'm terrified about how I'll react if the reviews don't agreee, which I know is a certainty. I tried some different things; some people will feel disappointed because it's not just more of the same. I just hope that the inevitable comments won't break my heart or my spirit.

What I have always loved about the ice castle story for you is that it's not just more of the same. I still don't see what you're saying about the plot being too similar to EMERALD HOUSE RISING. Writers often spend several books working through the same theemes, and that's what I felt and feel this is.

I am reminded of Gary Paulsen, who is a brilliant and underregarded writer. Not only has he written a whole bunch of similarly plotted books, each of which is worth readiong in its own right -- and his plot is highly specific: pre- or early-adolescent boy finds himself in a situation where he must meet his own survival needs with minimal training and/or equipment -- but he took probably the best of the bunch, HATCHET, and rewrote it THREE TIMES, changing one parameter each time.

Lastly, I can only say, you have all my sympathy, sweetie.

[magentamn.livejournal.com]

All I can say is I really hope you can get past this, because I am waiting very impatiently to read the Ice Palace book. I love the idea of Summer magic and Winter magic. My advice would be to keep writing it, but I guess that's because I find it easier to edit than to do the original writing.

And remember, there are only 5 (or 3 or something) basic plots anyway. Choose one, and proceed. Is it Boy Meets Girl or is it Hero Conquers Dragon? Your brief description is not only the plot of EHR, but of dozens of other books, including many murder mysteries, some of which are timeless classics. (Well, except for the spell part, usually in murder mysteries, it's that A is afraid to tell what she knows, for fear it will implicate B, whom she loves, or something like that.)

I think you are a wonder, but not a two book one.

[blackholly.livejournal.com]

I don't really know if I am much qualified to give advice, but I'm starting my third book right now (if you consider Spiderwick to count as one big book) and I find myself slipping into plotting dynamics that are similar to Tithe. Sometimes I'm not sure if it is me being oversensitive, but I am worried about it.

Plotting doesn't come easily for me, so I think it is easy to fall into familiar patterns. I am finding, however, as I go on and let individual parts evolve beyond the general what-needs-to-happen-here, so much changes that things are becoming more and more different. I feel that the same thing may happen as you write, especially if you find that all the similarities are in the plotting and that few of the actual scenes you've written are similar.

Hope this helps a little.

[morganmalfoy.livejournal.com]

*sends encouragement*

-Morgan

Let me tell you about the book that did not want to be written

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

Peg, first, I think you know who I am; you originally friended my "SG" fanfic-oriented LJ, then friended me when I decided to create this real-life LJ as my primary LJ. Anyway, I got stuck, massively stuck, on the novel that finally got unstuck this spring and has been falling into place ever since, and I thought I'd share with you the process in hopes you find some encouragement and hope for yourself in my experience.

The story really begins in the early summer of 1994. I had just being reading some Arthurian legends to my then-young son. The bit about how someday "Arthur will return in time of England's great need" stirred up something I'd long forgotten: how much I had truly been shocked by and hated Frodo's decision at the end of The Lord of the Rings. And I said to myself, there at the age of 30-1/2, hey, if Arthur can return, why not Frodo? I grabbed a notebook and pen and started writing what I thought was going to be a few pages, my goal being to sketch out a plausible, believable scenario in which Frodo returns.

Thus began the madness and obsession that came to dominate my life and writing.

I ended up writing about 180,000 words, 43 or 44 chapters in all, a huge, sprawling epic tale loaded with lots of beginner's errors and padded with all the fantasy-template stuff I was told it should have if it was taking place in Middle-earth. I finished the story, then realized it could use revision. I wrote a complete second draft.

Meanwhile, I discovered the Internet and the concept of fanfiction, and by the time I got about a third of the way through the third draft, I realized that the odds of the Tolkien Estate wanting to adopt my vision of Frodo-Return into the "canon" were, well, next to zilch. Maybe below zilch. And not only that, but there were actually people who LIKED the ending of LOTR and were NOT waiting for someone (e.g., me) to write Frodo back into reintegration with ordinary life in Middle-earth.

Bloody hell, said I. I set the thing aside, focused on doing creative writing and creative web sites, mostly humor, some fanfic, and let it simmer.

Continued in next post....

Let me tell you about the novel that did not want to be written, Part Two

[bohemianspirit.livejournal.com]

Then, sometime about 1998 or 1999, I decided I had some good material in that Frodo-return tale, and some good themes to work with. I just needed to write an original story using the good stuff. So I started writing, and while I tried not to make it a case of "change the names, same story," that's where it was going, and, not surprisingly, I got STUCK. Good and stuck, and no idea where the hell I was going to go with the story.

I can't remember when I abandoned it, probably around the end of 2001, or maybe sooner. I do know that by the time January of 2002 had rolled around, I had returned to writing short fanfic and entered a phase of writing for FanFic.net and hanging out on LJ and discussion boards and stuff like that.

Somewhere in there, in the middle of 2002, I realized that I needed to write, once and for all, a decent, definitive Frodo-return story. I had to work with Frodo and get his story resolved so I could move on to working with my original character and not get HIS story mixed up with Frodo's. The boys share some similarities, but they really do have different tales to tell. ;-) I got halfway through the story, and had notes for the other half of the story.

Then NaNoWriMo came along. I "temporarily" set aside the Frodo fic and wrote a completely different and thoroughly bizarre magnum opus that served as catharsis for my FrodoAngstObsession, and entered NaNo hoping it would unlock my novel writer's block.

Long story short: It did. ;-) Eventually.

In the midst of NaNo 2002 came all the life-transition corporate-crap angst that I already detailed last winter. My life as a writer went on a brief hiatus while I did the grieving and getting on with life process. My interest in fanfic dropped away. My interest in novel writing dropped away. I did other stuff and worked on rebuilding my life.

Then, sometime late in the winter, I suddenly KNEW exactly where my previous original-novel attempt had gone wrong, and I then KNEW exactly where the original novel needed to go, and how it would be shaped, and how it would end.

And that's what I'm working on, now. I have the beginning chapters, and the ending chapters, and I'm working on filling in the middle. And I think it's going to work, this time.

But the story doesn't end there. Just this past week I suddenly started wanting to write my Frodo story, get it finished and put up on the web. And my insights about Frodo and how he experiences "Grace" in the story I'm writing gave me compare-and-contrast insights about my Original Character and how he experiences "Grace" in the course of his own story. And I'm still writing my original novel, even as we speak.

What a ramble. The bottom line: Hang in there. Honor the process. Don't assume a fallow time means it's all over. And let this story be what this story wants to be. Meander, listen, let it go where it will, and one day, all the pieces will fall into place and you'll say, ah! it's so bloody obvious! how could I have not seen it all along!

Keep us posted. ;-)