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Fantasy Romance

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Where's the Obsession?

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I finished up my revision over two weeks ago. Normally, I’d be plunging ahead into my next project, flush with the excitement of something new.

Except this time, the creativity isn’t coming.

inspiration
You and me both.
Reminds me of the song Where Have All the Cowboys Gone by Paula Cole, just replace Cowboys in the song with inspiration. Interesting that I’ve never been a big fan of the song. Kept trying to figure out why the singer needed a cowboy rather than making her own happily-ever-after if she wasn’t finding it from her partner. I listen to lyrics too closely, sometimes.

Still, I have several characters floating around in my head, but none of them are really meshing with a solid story or a love interest. I write Romance, so the love interest is critical.

Not sure what’s causing this. Perhaps I’m trying too hard. Or not hard enough. Or I’m feeling burned out with the book I wrote, the other I revised, and having a full time job.

Or, perhaps, I’m having a bit of a book hangover.

book_hangover

I spent a lot of time with the last set of characters. Really working hard to put them on the page and bring them to life.

Normally, the way I deal with loss is move right into the next story. But it’s not working this time. The first few weeks of writing a new story is what carries me through. The excitement. The freshness of the project. The need to get the swirling maelstrom in my head onto paper.

I normally love starting a new project. The time to create. To make something out of nothing.

So far, no fabulous ideas begging to be put on paper have usurped my every waking moment. I tried reading a couple of novels for inspiration, but I couldn’t get into them either.

Not sure what’s creating this sudden lack of creativity, but it can go ahead and be on its way now. I’m ready for my next obsession.

unnamed-11

 

How about you? Ever have your creativity suddenly dry up or just lose interest in something? What did you do to rekindle the spark?

Detour

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I have been super excited about my new project. Characters are alive, the story is taking shape, my outline is already 9 pages long as I include snippets of dialogue and other key points as they pop into my head.

Sure, a bunch of it will get cut and reworked, but it’s been heady.  A taste of what made me love writing.

And then our baby got sick. She’s been running a fever of 101-103 (with Tylenol) for three days as I write this. At day 5, the doctor wants to see her (but not before, as he says little ones sometimes go through this, especially little ones in daycare). I had to take off of work. My husband had to take off of work. You’d think a day home would have seen some writing done, but a sick baby allows no time in front of a computer. She needs to be held, comforted and cuddled. She’s a baby. She’s sick. She hates being sick, and she’s mad as hell about it. And she lets you know. Constantly.

One of us has to be dedicated to her while the other deals with the rest of the things a household requires. Food. The other kid. Laundry. Dishes. Recycling. That’s just the few my sleep deprived brain can name that needed doing this morning.

It’s hard enough to deal with a sick little one, but it’s compounded by frustration. Sure, writing isn’t my day job, but its important to me, and I’d finally found this spark of energy.

I don’t want to lose this rhythm, this grove.

I’m hoping the time I have spent on the outline will see me through.

If not, I have to find something that will next time. This isn’t the first or last time that real life is going to get in the way.

New Project

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There is nothing like a new project. It’s exciting.

I started working on an outline for the story. Rather than the very structured, rigid outlines I used for term papers, I have gone more with a stream of conscious flow. Snippets of conversations, or conversations I want to be had. Background. Plot ideas. Protagonists and their motivations. Antagonists and their motivations.

The outline itself is a bit sprawling and I am trying to tame it as I go. But it’s working better, allowing me to select snippets and insert them into the story as I go rather than being bound.

At 9 pages and over 3,000 words, the outline is a beast unto itself.

But this has helped me produce almost 10,000 rough draft words. That is an amazing amount for me to accomplish in such a short time. Yeah, they’re all garbage and will need to be rewrtten and reworked, but that’s how all of my rough drafts are.

I just need to find a way to keep the momentum!

Yeah, that synopsis I was going to work on . . . not so much this week.

Something New

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I have started thinking through a new story idea. Completely new. And I am excited, filled with hope and potential. My mind is racing. Characters are talking in my head again.

I started writing an outline, but rather than my normally organized, bullet pointed outline, this is more stream of conscious.

Maybe it’ll work better, maybe not.

Funny thing, it’s the same difficult character from the other story. Put in a new story in a new way, and I feel like it works. I keep him out of his center of power without weakening him. It lets him be ruthless without asking him to be ashamed of it. It lets him be both protector and conqueror.

The female lead is the same and different. It lets her be softer, less powerful, but still in control. I think. I need to work more on her.

I am planning to save all those thousands of words on the other stories and try to recast them with different characters.

I am just glad they are interrupting my thoughts again.

 

Oh yeah, I am still working on that query. Slugging through it and very, very thankful for my two beta readers who haven’t cut me any slack on it.

Creative Rejuvenation

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Writing a query letter is hard. Much harder than I expected, and it further tapped my drying well of creativity.

After slogging through issues with a character and his story, writing a query was one of the worst things I could have done for my creative rejuvenation. I don’t have a lot of time to spend writing between my day career, kids, and spouse. The time I do have, I would like to be enjoyable, or at least not a drain.

The flash fiction challenge I participated in almost made things worse. I “rolled” a combination to write about that I just couldn’t do. Then I remembered I am not in school. I am not being graded on this. I can decide not to do it and there are absolutely no repercussions.

I rerolled and wrote something else entirely.

I am not yet ready to tackle my difficult project, but I do think I am ready to try something new.