A Writer's Stumble

  

It’s been quite a while since I have published anything, a little over four years ago, actually.  I did take time off to work on a history picture book for my family. You can read about that in my post dated August 17, 2019.  After I finished that project, I did get back to working on my next story. I hope to make it a series, and I have started on the second book, but mostly I'm focusing on this first book. I did go through a long period of time where I wasn’t writing much, some days only a few sentences. It wasn’t about writer’s block, but more that I simply didn’t feel like writing. I am fortunate in that I don’t have deadlines, anyone telling me they need so many chapters by a certain period of time. Believe me, I admire those who can work under those conditions. When I don’t feel like writing, I don’t. I have found if a try to force it, everything I write is plain flat and boring.

I am finally in the writing mood again, and have been for a while now. The problem is not any type of writing block, but more like a stumble.  The main plot of this first story in the series involves a cottage. I don’t want to give anything away, but as I completed a chapter, and the next and so on, I found I had made no mention of this cottage. It’s not that it has to be at the beginning and all the way through, but so far, what I had written, I could easily see the reader thinking where’s the cottage? I kept on writing anyway, and I hoped that this little stumbling block would work itself out.

My husband read the chapters I had completed, and he voiced the very concern that was on my mind! Now the genre I write is not his cup of tea, but he does enjoy helping me with my stories, for which I am eternally grateful. So we talked it out over a few days, and we came up with a great solution. I have to go back and rewrite some of the chapters to recover from my stumble, but I have never minded having to rewrite entire chapters.

In the meantime, I'm glad I kept on writing. On days where the words would not come, I spent time jotting down tentative ideas for the next chapters.  I am about five chapters ahead with those notes. I might change the content once I get to that next step, but writing up some ideas helps me to feel productive, even if I have not written a word.

I do realize I wrote about a similar situation I found myself in back in February of last year, about choosing a new path. I wanted to write a cozy mystery series, but I found it’s not a genre where I could come up with what I felt would be a good story. Working on this new series idea, I'm finding I'm still going to stumble from time to time.  I tend to think once I have the gist of the story, the rest will be easy. It’s not easy for me, but I'm not going to let that stop me. I do love to write, and that is always going to be my main focus, even if I wind up not publishing again. I'm not planning on that, but if you have read A Life Time After Time, then you know my plans never go according to plan!

If you stumble or even experience that dreaded writer’s block, don’t let it stop you. Take time away if you need to.  Write down story ideas. Make a list of character names, including pet names. Read some books in the genre you want to write about. Research cities or countries where you might want your story to take place. Look up phrases and words that are or were popular during the time of your story. There are all kinds of things you can do, perhaps that might not even be related to your current work in progress, but that is always time well spent.

Enjoy you writing journey, even the stumbles and the blocks! Thanks for stopping by. Keep reading, keep writing.