Moving forward at a snail's pace

Well, I'm moving ahead with the new novel, slowly but surely.

Emphasis on slowly.

Today, I managed to delete all the crap I had written before and then added about 300 new words that may or may not be English. Still, whatever they are, they're better than the garbage that preceded them.

I left the opening scene, because I actually think it's salvageable. Heck, it might even be good as it is.

I've also been analyzing why I've been so blocked the past few weeks (I know. Analyzing always gets me in trouble). I think it's a combination of fear that my first effort wasn't very good and a big change in the Towery household. You see, this is the first summer that the 12-year-old hasn't gone to summer day camp. He's too old this year.

So he and I are hanging around the house all day. He goes to the gym with me and then we come home, eat breakfast and I head down to write while he reads or watches television or plays video games.

And I worry that I'm ignoring him. That his summer will suck because Dad is too busy in his study writing. We live out in the bluffs and there's no kids his age nearby. So the poor kid sits here all day while I write (or try to).

And, I suspect, that's keeping me from concentrating on the task at hand -- namely getting this new book started and done in the ten-month time frame I'm shooting for.

It's just not happening, folks.

I'm one of those weird writers who must have complete quiet. I can't be interrupted or I lose my train of thought and whatever I was writing vanishes from my mind forever. I do have a cursory outline, but I mostly write from the seat-of-my-pants. And that's been a problem the past three weeks.

It's not his fault. Not at all. In fact, he feels bad and blames himself for dad's writing block. Now this isn't true, of course. It's all my fault.

But it's still a problem, you know?

As you can tell, I've spent far too much time screwing around with the blog. I do, however, like the newest design. Of course, knowing me, I'll change it again next time I'm blocked.

Hell, I haven't even been able to blog much, I've been that blocked. The simple act of writing a blog post damn near sends me into panic mode these days. I sit here, and ... nothing comes.

So I do this stream-of-consciousness thing I'm doing right now, because it's the only way I can actually get something written.

I wonder. Do people see shrinks for writer's block? I'm serious. I'd do it if I thought it would help.

So my question to you, dear bloggy friends, is this: What do you do when you're blocked and can't write? I mean, I've already taken three weeks off, so taking more time off isn't the answer. Maybe the little bit of work I got done today means the end is in sight. I hope so.

Trying to write my way out

I have been unable to write anything other than pure crap for about three weeks or so. I'm not sure why, but it's driving me nuts.

Not to get too personal, but I've had some (minor) health issues during that time, including some kind of weird bug that left me exhausted with swollen glands and one hell of a headache for weeks. Then, I developed a running-related foot injury that hurts me when I sit down (at my desk, for instance). It's throbbing right now, as a matter of fact.

This has all combined into a massive bout of writer's block. Take today. I sat here for more than three hours and came up with ... 238 words.

Of pure crap.

A couple of weeks ago, I was really excited about the new WIP. I still am, but I'm having real problems getting it off the ground. No matter what I do, I stare at the screen and nothing comes.

Sigh.

I'm starting to get worried. I mean, I wrote The Devil You Don't Know mostly in a fog of ignorance. I was pretty much done with the manuscript when I discovered there were writers' blogs and agents online. In other words, I knew nothing about writing fiction when I wrote it. I just let 'er fly and went with my creative juices.

Then I learned all about the craft of writing. I started to read writing books, and blogs, etc. It helped me tremendously in editing and revising TDYDK.

But since then, I have started three books. And all three sit in various states of un-doneness (if I may coin a phrase) on my hard drive.

Don't get me wrong. I am not quitting. No way in hell. I will work through this.

But I can't help but wonder if I now know too much about the writing process. For instance, I am so damned aware of how important the first fifty pages are that I freeze now when writing my WIP. I just know that it's not good enough. And the more pressure I put on myself, the harder it is to sit down and just write.

Like I used to.

How do you deal with writer's block? Do you put too much pressure on yourself? Do you find that the more you know about the craft of writing, the harder it gets?

I'm alive!

I was offline almost the entire holiday weekend. We were busy with graduation parties and family get-togethers and road trips and all the other stuff that families do on long holiday weekends.

And I am pooped.

I started the new novel over the weekend, and by today I had already run out of gas. I'm 1,700 words in, and I'm clueless as to where to go next (even though I have, like, this huge outline). In other words, I'm writing again! Whoo-hoo.

I know I announced a couple of weeks ago that I was scaling back my blogging -- and I have -- but today I want to announce just the opposite. I have missed blogging every day, so I hereby promise to blog most every day except Saturday. Even if it' something short and sweet.

Like this one.

To the farm

When I was about eight or nine years old, my mom backed out of our garage one sunny Spring morning and ran over our three-month-old kitten, Butterball. I remember the poor creature flipping and flopping around the garage floor, obviously in agony, as Mom, my sister and I stood around it, stunned and horrified.

It was not pretty.

"Is she going to be okay?" I asked.

"I hope Butterball will be okay," my sister said, a tear trickling down her cheek.

Mom looked at the poor cat, looked at us, and looked at the cat again. It was howling in pain and blood was coming out of its eyes, nose and mouth. Did I mention that it was not a pretty sight?

"She'll be fine," she said, hustling us off to school.

When we got home that afternoon, Mom was sitting on the sofa watching her soaps. Butterball was nowhere to be found.

"How's the kitty?" I asked, fearing the worst, yet hoping for the best. You know how kids are.

She looked up and smiled comfortingly. "Oh, she's fine. But we decided to send her off to a friend's farm to live. That way, she can heal and live with her kitty friends."

Now this bummed us out for a while, especially since Mom would never let us visit Butterball at the farm. But I was really glad she was with her friends, running and playing in the hayfields. You know how kids are.

Some years later, Mom finally fessed up -- her brother had come over and buried poor dead Butterball while we were at school.

We eventually forgave her, but the farm metaphor stuck. Let's just say my family has a weird sense of humor. Anyway, whenever an uncle or aunt would pass on, we'd say they "went to the Farm." It became a bizarre code word for dead.

There's a point to this rather gruesome story. Seriously. And for all two of you who have stuck around to hear it, here it is.

I wrote yesterday about my white-page panic, and how the 300-some words I wrote were most likely dreck. Utter crap. Remember? Well, I opened up Word this morning and looked at them.

Sure, I told myself. They are going to be fine. No problem.

I smiled comfortingly -- and sent the little bastards off to the Farm. With Butterball and Aunt Edna.

Have a nice trip, crappy words. And tell Great Uncle Mike I said hi.

White-page panic

I'm blocked. Big-time. For the past two days, I've sat down at my desk, fired up Microsoft Word, pulled up my manuscript and ... just froze. Went tharn, like those doomed rabbits in WATERSHIP DOWN.

White-page panic, I call it. Others call it writer's block. No matter what it's called, it sucks.

I recall this happening a couple of times while I was writing my last novel, and I've spent countless hours trying to remember how I dealt with it then. I suspect it left as suddenly as it arrived. At least, I hope that's what happened. Because I don't like this feeling. Not one damned bit.

Don't get me wrong. I'm still writing. I wrote a whopping 135 words yesterday and bested that with a stunning 202 words today. At this rate, I should finish the novel in, say, the year 2015.

And I'm fairly certain I've done nothing more than bang out pure dreck. Dreadful, awful crap. God, I'm afraid to read it tomorrow. Really.

I was a newspaper writer for 25 years and had to write on command most days, even if the well was dry. I remember many times leafing wildly through my tattered reporter's notebook looking for something, anything, to get me started. Just so I could quit staring at that damned blinking cursor. Usually, it worked, and I would bang something out. Heck, sometimes it was even decent.

But the act of creating, of writing fiction, requires more than just plugging in something and hoping like hell it works. At least, it does for me. I've read many successful writers who say they just plowed onward, right through the wall. Writer's block? What writer's block?

Well, goody for them.

But I'll keep at it, one day at a time. And when the muse returns, I shall be here to welcome the little bitch with open arms.

But for now, I'm gonna head on over to Facebook and see who's there ...