Losing the way
OK, after the enthusiasm and planning of the first week, I am well and truly into the swing of writing, and hope to hell that things are making sense. Remember, at this stage of the game, you are writing NOT editing your story, so if you are having problems, just keep writing.
Last year, I wrote an epic story about a king who lost his kingdom, but found a girl, lost the girl, gained his kingdom back, gave up his kingdom to chase the girl, got the girl, got the kingdom back. Half way through, there was a war, and I got lost. The story really didn’t seem to be getting anywhere, and this is where I am grateful that I had a roadmap.
Instead of freaking out about how I was going to work this war, I dropped it and went onto the next scene, and worked from there, going back to my roadmap for guidance. It worked. I haven’t had a chance to edit that story yet, but I have fresh eyes and will be able to blend the war back in better than I was able to last year, and I only lost a day over it.
So if you get stuck, what should you do.
First, is there anything you can do? If not, just move onto the next scene. You can fix it when you edit.
Second, if you can do something, then keep writing, even if it is nonsense. That is where the editing comes in.
Thirdly, don’t feel you have to edit, it isn’t worth it and it takes away from your writing time.
Good luck with the writing.
That is my approach to SoCNoC, I am following the roadsigns but the stuff in between is hardly my finest work. However I'm leaving it alone and getting on with the story. I'm going by my guide but when it's something that can't be skipped I improvise, so now I have a character in the mix who I didn't plan on having.
Thanks Karen, this is all good advice.
My only editing will be when I move from the scribbled words in my battered old notebook to the typed words in my shiny laptop. Then I might just tidy up the odd clumsy phrase, but I will let the time pressure stop me from editing too much.
I have already found some parts of what I am writing slow and almost painful to write - there are no ideas flowing I am just moving the plot along. At other times things will pop into my head and I will be away in a frenzy of writing when my only wish is that I could write as fast as I can think. Sadly I can't type that fast either, so that won't help me.
I have got over some of the blocks will little short chapters - a sort of mini-story within a story. They are quick to write and sometimes are only four or five hundred words long, but they keep the creativity moving. My central character seems to have had a life-time of disasterous relationships, so I just pick one of these and write a mini-story about a terrible date or disasterous misunderstanding. They help keep me moving along. At the end I will slot them in between chapters - a sort of comic aside.