Struggling
I'm having real problems with the novel I've decided to write this year. It's been in the planning stages for years. I've invested time and mind and heart to it. I finally decided to just get a full first draft out during NaNoWriMo, just to be done with the thing and be through with it.
Yesterday started out fine. I got several pages done and some problems worked out. This morning I hit a road block in trying to figure out how I was going continue the story. I decided and undecided for about two hours how to proceed. Then I decided to walk away and stop thinking about it, fully intending to come back to it later in the day.
Walking away is a no-no for me. I tend to walk away and never want to go back. It makes me think that the thing is impossibly hard. It isn't, of course. It seems that way to me because I over-think things. I think and think until my thinker is sore and I burn myself out.
I'm resigned, as of today, to not do that again, at least until the end of this NaNoWriMo. I will work on the problems that I'm having with the narrative, tomorrow. I will get the next scene squared away (possibly tonight) and I will do everything within my power to finish this draft within the next 29 days. I have made myself a solemn promise that if I can't get this thing done (or at least very nearly done) by December 1st, I will never write the story.
These characters want to be written about, they claw at my brain and spirit and beg me to finish, but then they get obstinate and make it hard to write about them. This is their last warning. In 29 days, if their story isn't told it never will be. The end. No more.
There is always another story. I have plenty to tell.
