Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Blocked...

I'm having some serious writer's block issues.  I usually do, during semester, and this one started way too soon. 

One anthology, of some of my older fiction written while I was dealing with returning memories from childhood, is mostly finished.  I'd like to get my claimed kin (and maybe one or two others) to read it, and let me know where they want more details before I self-publish on Amazon.  It's about 45,000 words, so not very long.

The anthology of stories putting the various Greek gods in the modern world and in modern situations (Hades at an annual convention of death gods, for example) is mostly finished.  I've got about four more stories I wanted to write, and that's what's giving me problems.  Currently sitting at about 40,000 words, with another probable 12-15,000.  Also not too long.  I'll probably self-publish that one through Amazon, too.

Then we've got my novels.  I have three roughly outlined.  One is about a third of the way done (and about 41,000 words), but again, I'm stuck--I think I may need to start at the beginning and read the whole thing and edit it to get back on track. A second is going to take a lot more outlining before I can even start writing on the novel (but the main character's blog is here). The third I've written once, and trashed because it just didn't work very well.  So I know where it's going, it's just going to take time to write to get there. 

I have a fourth idea, but don't know if that one is even publishable.  It's more than a little odd.  It's set around the time of Atlantis, partially in distantly pre-Roman Europe, partially in my vision of Atlantis, and the main character (first person narrator) is about fourteen when she decides to run away from family trying to talk her into the family business of being a brothel prostitute and become a mercenary.  And she succeeds in getting away from the life she doesn't want into the one she does.  There's a lot of violence, and a lot of (consensual) sex in the novel (and yes, I do have a good chunk of it written, and the rest of it outlined).  Given the character's age--and she is extremely resistant to being written as even slightly older--I'm not sure it's something I can sell, or really, publish in any format.

Part of the problem is time--I don't have any.  I'm running in circles all day, pretty much every day, chasing the kids, trying to do housework with two toddlers following me and undoing it, answering questions from my students (in an interesting mix of good questions and ones that leave me screaming "Did you even read the stupid chapter of the textbook I wrote for you?!"), and trying to remember what I need to be doing next.  Odysseus is a huge help, but I think there needs to be at least two more of us to keep up with the kids, and besides--he's working a new job, usually in the afternoons to far past the kids' bedtime (and occasionally mine).

Another part of the problem is that by the point in the day where I have the time to sit down and write, I don't have either the mental, or physical energy, and wind up sitting, staring at a blank page in my notebook, trying to figure out where to start. 

Last, I think I tried to take a story in the wrong direction with the Greek anthology, and my muse isn't feeling very forgiving of that.  I'm fumbling for the right thread to add to the tapestry, and keep coming up with dental floss.

2 comments:

  1. Interesting...I just wrote a short piece bitching I'd lost my muse too. I hope it all works out for you.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I just read your post. I'll commiserate over there--right now I'm not awake enough to be able to string two ideas together.

    ReplyDelete

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