The Act of Writing

I'm amazing at how difficult it can be to write.  It is of course a simple matter of typing or writing down your thoughts, the story in your head.  However, it gets to be so much more complex when you are writing for an audience.  Of course there is the grammar and punctuation to consider, but even more than that it's about making sure the story is readable, interesting, and makes sense. It has to be believable within context, meaning everything must follow the same rules within the same story.  Otherwise it just becomes nonsense and most people will not bother to read it.

I sit reading over what I have written, the first draft, the prewrite.  The story is good but the writing isn't, yet.  When I write the prewrite, my goal is just to get the story down, to get it finished so that I don't get lost or forget.  So while I'm reading what I have wrote, I know that parts are really bad writing and that I need to fix them...that's where it gets hard.  How do I make it better? How do I tie in what is written on page 10 with what's going on with pages 12-20?  I have rewritten one section, only to have another one no longer make sense with the new change...How to reconcile the two.

I have a hard time deleting parts of a story I worked hard on, removing phrases or sentences that I thought were particularly.  So editing is a lot of fits and starts.  A lot of staring off trying to picture what I've wrote, what I want to write.  A lot of rereading the same lines over and over, hoping the answer will come to me.

I love to write, but I have to say this process is frustrating sometimes.  Usually when I am faced with a problem and I don't know how to fix it I will Google it.  But this is something that can't be Googled.  This is something that I can only do by myself.  There is a lot of frustration and doubt that comes with it, but I have to say, once I have solved the problem and really great writing sits in front of me, I am incredibly proud of myself. 

Darkness Within

I am so excited for this new book.  I began writing it about a year ago, at the same time writing another novel that kind of lost my interest.

I got started by thinking about having someone leaving creepy notes for another person to find, and a story was born.  It has really changed direction on me a lot, and I really had a hard time figuring out how I was going to end it, until I got to writing the ending.  Then it just came to me, and I am very satisfied with the ending, for now.

I am in the process of editing, which at times is easy and fun and other times frustrating and makes me want to walk away.  My writing tends to flow so well that it is hard to interrupt it to add new scenes are change things.

I really look forward to when it is complete!