Writer's Block

WriYe blogging circle posts seem to fit a distinct pattern. There are the topics I look at and wonder how the heck I'm supposed to make up something halfway intelligent and there are the topics that give me the uncontrollable urge to release some insanity. Writer's Block fits into the second type of post, so brace yourself.

A writer's insanity

Read through my last few posts (all of 2012, really) and you'd probably agree that we're dealing with one loopy writer here. This is a WriYe blogging circle post, though, so I'm not just talking about me being a bit freaky. It's my characters that are the focus.

Specifically, those characters who like to invade my head and start talking.

A pantser's crisis of confidence

This is what's going through my brain at the moment:

I am not a published author. I've written 14 complete first drafts, but I have yet to take the next step. I've never tested my methods to find out if a first draft written by the seat of my pants really can be turned into an acceptable novel. People all over the internet say it can't, that I wasted my time writing that crappy first draft. I should have just sat down and written a decent outline in the first place and then I wouldn't be smack bang in the middle of a crisis of confidence right now.

Same universe, different series

Yet again, the WriYe blogging circle provides me with a subject that makes me go blank. Aside from a brief reference to a scary-beyond-all-reason girl called Stella, I've never really re-used a universe. I don't even know if that counts - it's just a convention of my writerly multiverse that girls called Stella are always bad news. She's appeared in three separate stories, most recently as the personification of my Inner Critic.

So, let's talk about other people who've re-used a universe.

How I write

I don't know whether to regard this as conclusive proof of my insanity or just a random comment in a sea of random comments, but for all of February I've been suffering from an epic crisis of confidence. This was to the point of sitting at the computer for hours on end and barely writing a word, having nightmares about writing when I go to bed and engaging in dangerous levels of procrastination rather than actually opening a story file. My muse had a couple of goes at kicking me into shape, but nothing worked until today.

Random McPsycho and other weird things from the world of story preparation

• conversations with characters and/or my necromusenomancer
• staying up till midnight to see what song plays while my media player is on random
• panicking
• calling a character Random McPsycho
• NOT writing up a blow-by-blow description of the plot
• WriMo addiction