I hit a brick wall!
I was in the middle of a scene when I realized that in the next scene I was about to introduce some major characters. Characters that I HADN'T CREATED YET! My brain froze and I think I stared at the wall for about 10 minutes. I had gotten so excited about getting this story down that I hadn't slowed down to create some major characters. Characters that would be super involved in the majority of the book.
PANIC! PANIC!
After a brief freak out session (I think I just wondered the house aimlessly for a good 30 minutes), I sat down with some of my inspiration material a.k.a. stuff I cut out from magazines. I was relieved when some ideas started to flow. I liked the characters I was coming up with but I just didn't feel right about them for this story. I found that it really sucks when these people in your head are saying, "I'm cool, put me in, I promise I'll be awesome!" but you just can't commit to them.
It made me really reflect on the world I'm trying to create. Then, I had to take care of life stuff: pick up son from school, tackle the pile of laundry, clean the kitchen. Seriously folks, it was pitiful the amount of house work that needed to be done. Which reminds me, my Christmas tree is still up.... *le sigh*...
Anyway, my husband got home and had a horrible sinus pressure headache so I didn't want to bother him with my writerly woes. I just continued to bang my head against that wall.
It wasn't until after the kids were asleep, I'd gotten a long shower, and his headache was feeling better that I kinda unloaded on him. And what's amazing is just talking about it helped me figure it out. He basically just sat there and nodded his head while I bitched about how frustrated I'd been all day. Then, things worked themselves out.
Now, I'm following my instincts, going with my gut. I believe I've found my new characters (one is actually based on a real person) and I'm ready to proceed.
Maybe you're saying, "Well that's what you get for not being prepared," and you'd be right, I didn't storyboard or outline. BUT, I believe I didn't know my world or my story well enough to even contemplate these specific characters.
In other news, Joe and Lydia Sharp at The Sharp Angle Blog are running an awesome contest! They'll critique the first 500 words of your first chapter and you could win awesome stuff!
Yeah, I've already entered... And I have to admit that after I pressed that send button, I allowed myself to have a brief daydream. You know that scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie turns in his paper to the teacher and he dreams about her loving it? "A + + + +" Well, you get the idea :)
There would have been a clip of that scene here but I couldn't find it. I'm sure you all just got finished watching a marathon of the movie over the holidays anyway. So instead here's this which I first saw on Myra McEntire's Blog:
Oh, oh, oh!!! And this post she did was exactly how I was feeling last night and it cheered me up immensely (after I blubbered like an idiot)!
And Congrats to the newly married Mr. Gaiman and his wife! Talk about some awesomesauce!
No comments:
Post a Comment