Hitting a Wall

So I'm stuck. Like most writers out there, eventually we do hit walls. There's all sorts of advice on how to blaze past it, and I've shoved my way through a great many of them in the past, but it's here none the less. I had been working hard to hammer out the first chapter of a YA novel. I struggled immensely, managed a little over 1000 words in about a month, and decided that it just wasn't going to work out. Or atleast, that idea wasn't going to work out.

I came home from the Monday Night Writer's Pack, and cranked out about 800 words of a different piece. Mostly random, no real plot or ideas, just playing around a bit. It sounded alright, and over the past week, I've more than doubled the number of words. Catch is, it was just a kind of exercise and I've no clue where I want to go with it, if anywhere. I may have the kernals of something, but they haven't popped yet.

To make matters worse, I had a deadline this past Thursday to submit a piece for critiquing with the Underground Writers, and there's one today with the Monday Night Writing Pack that I'm going to be missing. I'm going to have to send an apology in lieu of submission to both I'm afraid. The piece I sunk a month into isn't fit for human eyes, and the one I started last week, although better, isn't ready for critiquing by any soul.

The editing of Hedged In has come to a bit of a stand-still as of late. I have to get it all finished up and rewritten before the month is out, so I'm probably going to end up focusing on that. Maybe I'll submit the first 4k of that novella to the groups in March. I don't think it'll quite be publishable quality, but I'm going to get my free print copy to which I'm entitled. If the critiquing of the edited version goes well enough, and another rewrite puts out something I think is ok, I'll grab a couple of beta readers and e-publish it through Smashwords. If I get $20 out of it, I'll be happy enough.

Julia and I have begun work on Script Frenzy. We've got a basic timetable planned out, and a to-do list that we'll have to chew through. It looks like we'll be going all-out this year, with a tonne of events including another all-nighter. We've given each event its own name (more or less). Hopefully we'll get a good turnout and Script Frenzy can grow like NaNoWriMo did this past year. I've got a pretty good idea of what I'm going to be scripting this year, and I think it'll be a blast!

Anyhow, I'm going to try to break through my wall. Someone told me changing the colour of your "paper" works. We'll see how that goes.

Post Critique #3

So this past Thursday, my writing group, The Underground Writers, did our third big critique session. It was our first session with a new member (Julia Muldoon) in the group so we were all pretty eager to see how things would turn out, what kind of information would get exchanged, and what her piece would look like.

On the whole, things turned out really well. The pieces were generally newer (or older pieces that had been edited with some of the more recent advice from other pieces), so it was all around an easy critique. I had submitted my short story, Blood & Puppies, for critiquing this round. Generally the reviews were along the same line. Near the end I have a PoV shift that needs some work, there's a bit of blocking trouble for that last portion, and there's a small bit at the beginning that really doesn't make much sense. From what feedback I got, I have to quote Randy Lalonde on the all-around progress: "Your dialogue has also gotten stronger and has outgrown your descriptive prose." Not a bad bit of review, and it shows me exactly where I need to work with my next handful of pieces. Basically, keep tightening the dialogue, and work more on tightening the description.

I wasn't sure about the working title going in, and I'm still not sure about it coming out. The reviews on the title have been mixed. They're about half-and-half. Those that like the title, or even squirm at the title, claim that it's a very re-tweetable title, and that people may just stop and look at / buy the piece because of it. The others aren't overly fond of the title, because it doesn't work too closely with the actual story. I hope to come up with a better title, but if nothing pops up before I finish the rewrite, it'll probably stick.

On other writing news, editing on Hedged In has been progressing a little slower than I thought. I figure I should still have it done by my deadline, but whether I'll be as happy with it at that point as I want to be, that's another question. I may end up having to bow out of one of our monthly critiques just to get it to the point that I want it at. That would mean putting other projects on hold, and I'm not up for that right now.

I began a new project a couple of weeks ago and I'm almost through writing the first chapter of it. I had received word about a scholarship that teetered on writing a young adult novel. The cash involved is pretty nice for someone looking to get through another year of school. So I spent an evening reading over the back covers of dozens of books in the YA section of Chapters, and I even bought and read one (Graceling by Kristin Cashore). I spent another evening coming up with a few YA-style treatments, and then I began writing a first chapter of one of my ideas. I don't even have a working title for the piece yet, but when I do, I'm sure you'll all be able to read it here.

Anyhow, I have some more writing that I need to get done today. I promised myself a good two solid hours of writing, and I aim to do it.