I have this bad habit, one I was reminded again about yesterday. You see, I get all gung ho about a story idea, and I write, and then I sort of fizzle out, and then I just kind of…abandon the project. And it sits there unfinished, boys in the middle of a scene, with no resolution in sight.
Now, sometimes, it’s because the story isn’t working. It’s not the right story to tell, and it’s not going to get written. Like Ben and Zack, from Don’t Wanna Lose Your Love (which will be out in June). What I originally wrote, months and months and months ago…that wasn’t working. But then there was a new idea, and I was able to bring those guys back and tell their story in a new and better way.
But most of the time? Yeah, it’s all on me. It’s because I hit a wall, or I find problems, and the work that needs to be done to tell the story just isn’t happening. That’s my fault. I have a WIP Roll the Dice, that’s just sitting because I couldn’t figure out the next part and these guys are just waiting for their story to be told. That one I still think about from time to time, open up the doc, read along and love them, and then…I get to that point where it’s stopped and I still have no idea how to move the story forward.
And my current WIP? It has no title and barely 5,000 words. Except that one I actually have plotted out to the end, in rough terms, and I know where the story is going. But I was still whining about writing it. Still having issues. And wanting to abandon it and work on something else. Of course, I have someone lovingly breathing down my neck, telling me to just focus goddammit, and write the dang story.
So I am. 2k of those words I just put on the story yesterday, and I’m at the point where my MCs finally start moving toward each other. It’s the early stages yet, and there’s some misconceptions working against them, but that will all be straightened out soon. We have a guy who’s in the closet by necessity, and another, our narrator, who will eventually sort everything out.
I use excuses to keep me from writing it. I know I do. “It’s bad.” “I have edits coming up.” “There’s these other guys talking in my head.” Whatever I can think of. And it’s all true, but that doesn’t preclude me from writing these guys, from telling their story.
It’s a bad, bad habit. But one I’m trying to break.
Kris T. Bethke--Author of M/M Romance 
More like it becomes work and you tend to want it to be easy 🙂
Don’t we all. But some of our best work can be done under these circumstances
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As always, you are very logical. And right. 😀
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I’m not a writer, so I may be talking rubbish, but I’m just going by what other writers have said. I wonder whether it might help if you did some planning or outlining right at the beginning, when the characters and ideas are fresh and you’re burning to go?
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Not a bad idea Helena. And sometimes that does work for me, when I can see the whole story from the start. Which is not always the case. Sometimes it’s just a beginning, and knowing that they’ll end up in love. Those are the times when I jump in without thinking the whole thing through…and that might be a big part of the problem 🙂
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I was going to say almost the same thing Helena did. Brainstorming and jotting down a rough outline of the major points and where you want the story to go may help. I know that is much more easily said than done though.
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I’m rocking that right now, with my current WIP…but yeah, I don’t always get the whole picture or jot it down when I do think of it. I am sometimes, a very disorganized writer! lol 😉
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