I want to give those reading these posts another caveat besides that which I placed on my “Why I Do What I Do”. I am a student in the art of writing. I am learning. I am taking you through the process as I am going through it. Sometimes I am giving information I have learned intellectually from other sources and might not be quite good at applying it. Sometimes, through analyzing and contemplating, I have come to conclusions from the works of other authors which I either like or dislike. Again, I might not have learned how to apply it yet. As of this post, I have not written a published novel. I have written a novel that has not been polished and I have no intention of publishing because it is just for me and those close to me. I like it, but I don’t know how others in the broad world would like it.
Now, with that in mind, this post, and others in the future, will be about some of my struggles as I am attempting to write the books I want to write. So, at no point are my posts meant to show me as a master in the art of writing. I know some; what works for me so far as I can tell. I know what feels right when I write. (Pun intended.) I know that I don’t want to compromise who I am as a writer in order to write what my audience wants. I am willing to compromise with my readers to some degree, but not entirely give up my style and view of writing.
I have been struggling for some time with a difficulty in writing at all. The children’s book seemed to fall together so far as the writing went. The novels that I had started just came to a crawl. I don’t know if it was life just interfering with the imagination process or what. The one I had and still have in my heart, I can’t seem to get moving again. I know where I want it to go but there seems to be this chasm that the story can’t leap. I have been told to see if I can get another character or event to push the main character into action. I have put this hint in a safe place in my mind for future use. However, I don’t feel I can use it now because I have only just gotten some of my supporting characters introduced and I haven’t developed their characters yet. What I fear is that development of supporting characters might be what is holding me back. I got my romance novel to completion of a rough first draft, and as I look over it again I realize that lack of character development is exactly the reason I am incredibly dissatisfied.
If this is my problem, I am currently at a loss on how to learn this aspect of writing, at least, more than I have already found out. I read that this was a good exercise, to have the characters write letters about themselves and other characters. I have tried this and, of course, it helps in some cases, but in others … not so much. It helps me learn more about the characters, yet some characters don’t seem to bloom in the story, just in their letters.
I have yet to find a mentor for novel writing. I want to make sure that I find someone that will be able to nurture my writing style even if their style is different. After all, different writers should have different styles to some degree, simply because they are different people.
I also need to find a writers group. I know that having people to bounce ideas off of can help a creative flow and get a person past mental blocks they have. Will this solve my problems? I don’t know, but I want to try.
I have found that environment makes a great deal of difference. Find out what inspires you and surround yourself with that. If it is nature, surround yourself with nature. If it is a particular style of décor, use that to your advantage. This is the extent of the advice I can give in this post.
Yes, I am aware that this post has not been very informative on the how’s and why’s of writing, but I hope that it will help in so much that it is made clear that there is a struggle, one that most of us writers, if not all of us, must go through at some point or another.
In other words, let us not despair of our writing despite the times of hardship. When we come through those times, we will likely have learned something that will make our writing better and us more confident.
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