Writer's Apathy

Dictionary.com defines apathy as, "absence or suppression of passion, emotion, or excitement." I don't know if I would say that I'm not passionate about Guardians anymore, it's more that I've been outlining and reworking the plot to death and I need a break. You know that feeling where you do something so much that you just get sick of it? Like when you eat too much chocolate (yes, it can happen) it's too much of a good thing. I'm standing too close to the story right now and I've been looking at it from every possible angle. If I could take five metaphorical steps back things might be better.

Now, I wouldn't say that I have writer's block because I know exactly what comes next in the story and I know exactly where I'm going with it. I guess I would say that I've become disconnected from the story: the characters have become intangible and the plot unfamiliar. So, in the course of the five minutes that I've been writing this, half of my mind has been trying to solve the problem. (I know that seems weird, but I'm never just focusing on one thing. Multitasking is the way to go.) Here is my two-part solution to my Writer's Apathy.

1. Reread everything that I've written so far but DO NOT edit. The point isn't to improve on the story it's just to remind myself where I'm going with it.

2. Start writing sections by hand. If I feel more physically connected to the story, it will be easier to mentally connect to the story.

Now, if you excuse me, I have some writing to do.

Flexibility

I've been doing a good amount of work on Guardians for the past few weeks. Unfortunately, most of my efforts have not actually made it to the computer yet and are still firmly stuck in my notebook. The reason is, that there are some holes in my plot right now that I am trying desperately to fix. It's pretty frustrating because I can't actually write the story right now until my mind feels comfortable with the plot and where the story is going. However, I'm also really enjoying the experience. It's not a ton of fun or anything, a lot of it is rereading what I've written and looking at my outlines, and trying to stay consistent, which is can get repetitive. No, what I'm so happy about is that I have the ability to go back and change the plot. When I've tried to write stories before I've outlined everything and essentially gotten locked into a plot sequence before I've even begun to write. This time, I realized that I needed to be more flexible and so I didn't outline the entire story before I began. I did A LOT of brainstorming, and outlined the first half. Then I wrote and wrote and wrote, did some plot-tweaking, and wrote some more.

Now that I'm halfway through the plot I realized that I had used up my outline. So I did have to go back and outline the second half. But almost as soon as I began writing I found the holes. I mean, they were so big I could see right through them (Bad joke, I know. I couldn't resist.) But really, the holes were frustrating me and I literally could not write until I fixed them. So I did and now I can write again.

SO, the point of this ridiculously long tangent is that I have come to the conclusion that writers need to be flexible. They have to understand that the plot, the characters, or their own random brainstorms may take them a different way than they initially thought. I'm not usually that flexible but in this case, I think that giving into the story is the best thing a writer can do. Because being inflexible is basically another way to say that the writer is blocking their creative juices. And who wants to read something that lacks creativity? Not me, that's for sure. And I want to write something that lacks creativity even less.

Halfway There!

Halfway is there really strange point isn't it? It's a total glass half empty or half full situation. You can look at the halfway mark as a celebratory point or just sort of groan and realize how much more you have to do. Being the strange person that I am, I usually do some of both. First I feel happy because I'm proud of myself, and then I just start pushing forward to finish. So, after that total tangent (nice alliteration, don't you think?) I should probably get to the point of this blog. The halfway point I'm referring to is the halfway point of my senior project story "Guardians of Cornerstone". I'm really proud of myself and everything but at the same time, I know that this isn't even a legitimate halfway point. After this draft comes another one and then another. But this is the first time that I've actually been able to sit down and keep writing and that in itself is an accomplishment worth celebrating.