I’ve written a couple of hundred words today in WE2 (War’s End, Book 2) but mainly I’ve been looking at my Timeline file and using it to flesh out the basic outline of the book.
I don’t know how other writers write, but mine is in fits and starts, big circles, little circles and the occasional wandering curve ball.
With both War’s End and my outlined Chronicles of Liv Rowan I’ve started with a simple exercise…
It usually entails the following thought, I’m going to write something descriptive.
That’s it, that’s all the thought that goes into it. In the case of War’s End I wrote the chapter “Morning”, which is in Book 2. What always stumps me is the question that inevitably follows my writing a ‘descriptive scene’ – Well, great, I like this. But…what happens next?
Now in both War’s End and Chronicles of Liv Rowan, the what happens next? question stumped me for YEARS.
However, I truly believe that the reason I was stumped had nothing to do with my writing ability as it did with my lack of belief in my writing ability. I allowed myself to be fearful – to fear that I didn’t know the answer or that I simply didn’t have it in me to write a book.
I had a good giggle the other day when I read the following part of a book summary in my Chronicles of Liv Rowan series:
[solution] The epicenter of the earthquakes is in the Range of Zarah, a line of impossibly high mountains rivaled in height only by the Newo Crag mountain range to the north of the Glass Forrest. Within the mountain range, of which she must enter with a band of locals, along with Trevor and Pert, is a magical disturbance that she will fix with something from her purse.
To say my book outlines can sometimes be brief and scanty on details is an understatement. However, this particular ‘solution’ is to Book 3, so I have a while to think about it until I come up with a more detailed solution than ‘something from her purse’.
Imagine my terror when I realized that Chronicles was a twelve book series. I actually looked at it and reasoned, I can’t really do this, they will actually end up being six books, because how could I possibly find enough filler to make each individual story a full novel?
Plainly put, it’s bullshit.
It’s bullshit to believe I cannot write. It’s bullshit to sit around and wait for the perfect story from beginning to end to magically pop into my head. It’s bullshit to question every day whether or not I really can do this.
The questions are time-wasters and delays. Delays that can eventually mean the difference between DOING SOMETHING WITH YOUR LIFE or sitting around with your thumb up your ass.
And the same applies to you.
If you want to go to the moon, build a spaceship and fucking go to the moon.
If you want to teach yourself Spanish, then DO IT.
If you want to write, then write. Every damn day.
Don’t sit there reading this and dream about might-have-beens or ‘if onlys’ and get off your ass and do something about it.
That’s my four cents (used to be two cents but…inflation, man, inflation)
Now back to my world-crafting. No more delays!
