May
Beautiful Mental Constipation
Writer’s block.
Ha!
I don’t know the meaning of such a fickle concept but I do know the meaning of constipation. Mental constipation that is. I’m feeling rather writerly tonight.
Doesn’t sound like a problem, does it?
Work on my novel is going well. I’ve managed to accidentally alter my perception- it’s a difficult thing to explain but suffice to say I’m looking at my current tower of papers as more of an outline instead of a first draft. Sure, I wrote a half scribbled road map that spanned two and a half notebooks and called that an outline but now that it’s had time to breathe… things are different.
This is the first time I’ve ever completed something of this magnitude so I suppose it’s expected for me to get a little over zealous after writing 156k words in just under a month. When I finished I thought I could get straight into editing. Trying again and again only led to failure, procrastination, and battle plans conceived with poor insight. So, in a way, I suppose the following car accident was a blessing. True, I wasn’t injured badly and I didn’t even go to the hospital the same day (hell, I went to a work meeting and then work the next night before admitting that maybe, just maybe, I was in too much pain to function) but the next two months were spent sleeping and bitching about how my side hurt. Now, while all of that might suck, it did manage to distract me from my writing for a little bit. Not an easy task seeing as it takes someone ignoring a stop sign to do it.
The distraction was good. It was always there at the back of my mind- the outline/manuscript, but the second book was already at the front. See, while some writers might deal with characters who rant and rave at them until they can’t not write about it… mine simply outsmart me. They entice me with surprising secrets from their past and dramatic plans for their future. They speak to me through every song on the radio and tell me how they feel about every news article I read. Their experiences are my experiences and so, as compelled as I am to write about my own story so I am about theirs. I have to write it if only so I can understand.
But I’m deviating from whatever my point was.
I’ve stopped looking at my manuscript as clay that’s ready to be put in the over. I’ve had time to outline the second novel, time to think about where my plot is going and what I want out of it. I’ve had time to let what’s written become new again and as I continue to read it over I’m seeing absolute magic. True, I still have so much to do. So much to mold but that’s the beauty of it all. There’s so much potential.
So, my new battle plan follows heavily in the footsteps in which most of my writing does: I’m thinking over my moves carefully and then winging it. Going over what I now deem a very long and well detailed outline I’m making a list of all the major scenes, making notes for scenes I plan on removing and writing in more for scenes I’m sure to add. Plots holes are filling up much more easily than I thought they would and all those beautiful threads that came together so nicely by the time I wrote my ending line are becoming taught with drama.
I was damn proud when I finished writing the story and I’m going to be damn proud when I finish the novel. :)
Anyways, back to my mental constipation.
I’ve been making all these notes from my outline, off to the side I’ve started to writing a possibility of what my new beginning might look like. It’s not too different, still the same setting but with a whole new flavor. It’s like a strawberry milkshake and a strawberry banana milkshake. From this rewriting I’ll be able to start typing the story up all over again- only with a better sense of direction. I’m excited. I want to dive in so badly. The words are filling me up, an urge to slit my wrist and let the ink pool on the virtual paper (metaphor) taking over.
It’s all so beautiful and horridly distracting.
No, I don’t have writer’s block if said block is defined by a lack of inspiration. Of course, if writer’s block was defined by a blockage in the brain from story overload…
Hence, beautiful mental constipation. What a catchy title for a blog post. :)
