Some days it doesn't go at all well. The words don't come. They don't string together well. My mind just seems white. My heroine even ended up depressed because she couldn't think - because I can't think. Does the fault lie with my novel or with me? Is the lack of exciting, helter-skelter plot uninspiring? Am I not suited to write a thoughtful, philosophical romance? And doesn't that sound so utterly dull?! For the first time starting this novel (and I'm at least a third of the way), I'm having serious misgivings about the story itself. If something is a struggle to write, then doesn't it follow that it's a struggle to read? While I don't find it entirely boring to write, it isn't exactly exciting and that must surely mean it won't be exciting to read either. I had so longed to write this novel. The idea, when I had it, simply blew me away. I was in ecstasies. But now that I've come to execute it, it's crumbling into dust. My hero is turning into every other hero I've ever written - tortured and silent. I really am sick to death of putting myself on the page. Why can't I BE someone else to WRITE someone else? Why do I always have to be ME? I long to be charming and captivating and wanted my hero to be charming and captivating too, which would then contrast nicely with his tortured soul, so to speak (dear god, this is turning into a string of cliches). But there's no contrast. You know from the first scene that he's tortured. What's the bloody point, then? The truth is I'm not a good enough writer to tackle this kind of subject. And I simply can't imagine wanting to read anything this sensitive (or, at least, it's meant to be sensitive, but I think I've failed dismally with that too as I bludgeon my way through the characters' lack of expression). These days the fashion is for high plot, high drama, much goings on, as much horror as possible, sex, violence and ludicrousness galore. What am I doing? I am at a very low ebb. My tide has gone out and I'm not sure when it's going to come back. To continue with this hackneyed analogy, I really could do with a tsunami of writing brilliance, something to rescue the direness of my creation and turn it into the magnificent work of art I originally conceived it as. And if the phenomenal clumsiness of that last sentence is anything to go by, I should really learn to write.
RSS Feed
