A Brit in America

One of the best decisions of the year was the decision to hand-write this story. For one thing, you don't get hung up on word count or formatting, or distracted by the internet, you just sit down and scribble. It's brilliant. I did my first rough word-count a couple of days ago and was amazed to see that I'd gone over the 30,000 mark! It's really coming together, and I couldn't be happier.

However - and it's a big however - I ran out of paper. Which, in itself, is fine - it means I've written a tonne. Which is good.

What is not good is the face that America has vastly different paper to us with three punched holes instead of four, and they don't even align so I can't put the new content in with what I've already done which means I have to get a new folder, and I'm reeaally struggling not to let my Writer's OCD take over... I mean, I've been going between A4 and A5 anyway, so one more size shouldn't matter too much, and nothing is pristine. I'm much less pernickity than I used to be, just like I don't believe in writers' block anymore. It's just another excuse not to sit down and scribble.

It's just very frustrating.

The fortunate thing is that it came right at the end of writing Part 2, so it's a very neat split between types of paper. I'm estimating that I'm about half-way done, so - if I keep going as I am - I should be finished with this draft in a couple of months (scary!)

I'm starting to feel pleased with myself and I can see the end and I don't hate it! It's going to be a good book.

Dizzying Circles of Novelling

I have reached page 84 of my rewrite and crippling doubt has kicked in. As far as the actual content goes, I'm pretty pleased with it, but I'm worried that it's all been useless (I know, logically, that it isn't - even if I end up not using this material, it's helped character development, world building, focus etc.)

My problem is that the part I'm writing at the moment just feels like an enormous info dump. It's important - very important - but nothing much is really happening. I'm also starting to feel that including all this exposition as it's happening will make the future less interesting. In the original, I quite enjoyed having this element as a bit of a mystery, and I'm starting to think that I might go in that direction again. 

The thing is - or the things are - I want to jump forward, if that's the direction I'm going to take it, and start from that point, but I know it's useful to continue writing out my exposition, but I'm getting bored by it because I'm doubting it's usefulness. The other thing is, or really a continuation of the same thing is, every time I sit down to write - something, anything - my character development is such that is almost always impinges on the larger plot, so if I jump ahead and write where I want, I'm going to miss out on a lot of that. 

Eh bleh bleh. 

But then if I do my magic time jump, where will it end? How much of what I've got now do I include, if any? I've said it before and I'm sure I'll say it again - I'm a sucker for backstory, but it's tripped me up and sent me faceplanting the pavement, and now my nose hurts. 

I often find myself going around in circles; wondering how to make my story better, changing it in my head, and I always find myself back at the exact point I started at. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not... It makes me dizzy, that's for sure! 

What am I doing? But actually??

In other news, I am rediscovering my love of Kelly Clarkson.

05/07/2014

So much has happened in the past month and I have nothing to say.

What's that about?

The facts:

• I am now in America.
• For the forseeable future.
• My computer is breaking.
• So is my Sansa.
• So are my headphones.
• I am replaying the first game I ever got for my Gameboy Colour - The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening.
• I am totally and unequivocally uninspired and unproductive. At least I had an excuse when I thought my Dell was dead. What's my excuse now?
• I went for a week without writing a word.
• I don't know how I feel about that. 
• I wish it was November NaNo.
• I much prefer the person I am in America. 
• I hate myself in England. I am an uptight bitch in England.  
• I have to teach myself how to relax in all aspects of my life. 
• Everything's going to be okay.