So, there I am soldiering along and then I start getting stuck so I start skipping around writing little vignettes that are dotted around in the story’s time line and then this last week I went back and copied what I have from the initial draft into a separate file so that I can start again. It’s not exactly starting over but at the same time I needed to re-write a lot through the first few thousand words because information that is pertinent and not over-loading needs to be in there so that people aren’t lost. There was no explanation of who Cora, Clair, Stu and Jared were as they related to each other because that was all in the first section that I’ve cut out to be interspersed in flashback throughout the story now. So, I have to include those in the descriptions now. So far it’s working pretty well. I’ve pared down a vision scene which starts the book, shortening a lot of text down to sentence fragments to hopefully make it a bit more feral and I’m also working on expanding one of the later pieces that I only have about 500 words on so far.

Granted I haven’t seen much with werewolves. Werewolves pop up periodically in the vampire stories. I’ve seen the most recent episodes of “True Blood” actually have some werewolves in them but so far I haven’t seen them in “The Vampire Diaries”. It’s just…all these ‘creatures of the night’ hiding out in the day time in their walled up windowed rooms with the Quoizel lighting on to protect themselves from natural daylight.

They can be creepy but they can also be cliche. On the upside at least they don’t sparkle when I write about them.

The game, for example, I mix-up small technical details which isn’t so bad, tribal colors, tribal names, but translating powers and abilities can become a bit tricky; and that’s where things become problematic as far as the game is concerned, because I’ll think some thing should operate some way but the game mechanics don’t allow for that.

I prefer for games to be focused more on story but there still needs to be some conflict and combat and uncertainty otherwise what’s the point?

I suppose it’s a bit like dieting, you can have the best fat burners and you can cut down on foods and exercise. It doesn’t matter which order you do those in entirely, I mean, I imagine you have to take the fat burners with food or perhaps they’ll make you sick, but it doesn’t matter when in the day you exercise so long as you do it regularly. From what my doctor tells me it doesn’t matter when in the day you eat, or if you eat standing up or sitting down, so long as you do so slowly and allow your body to catch up with how full you are, and so long as you eat meals per day, and in fact it’s best to eat small meals throughout the day. He tells me you have to retrain yourself as to what’s a meal. A meal doesn’t have to be meat and two veg with dessert. A meal can be a bagel with cream cheese and a piece of fruit, or yoghurt with honey and cereal, or a scrambled egg with a slice of bacon. It’s about retraining.

Retraining is also good when it comes to my writing. I can write whenever during the day so long as I have the time and pace myself and don’t try to force the writing when it’s not coming, but if I’m being able to write something that I know from planning happens in the middle of the story and I’m only in 15% right now it doesn’t matter. I should go ahead and write that while it’s in my mind, rather than waiting and forcing it and making it suck and then getting disheartened.

Kore pointed out to me the other day that I’ve seemed to be on a low swing energetically. It’s not been so bad that I’ve been spending entire mornings or even most days curled up on the couch but at the same time that’s not good because it means I’m less likely to notice that it’s going on also. If you’re so low you can’t move you notice more than if you’re just being apathetic.

However, that’s moving away now. I’ve broken 20’000 words on “Too Deep” and I’ve been getting a little bit on the werewolf story also, so I think I’m going to be flipping back and forth between the two, once the house gets a little more straightened out anyway. I need to get back my focus on that score also.

Thankfully there’s been no curvatrim reviews to go through, but between the bank, the housing insurance change, trying to get the munchkin into pre-school (apparently I missed the deadline for VPK round-up thanks to all the bank issues and me being forgetful BUT wait lists, right?) and now add to that things from the lawyer I need to sort out today too.

Still I managed to write sever little bits on ‘Too Deep’ *gasp* and also some on the werewolf story. I’ve decided with both of them to just write the info I’m getting and sort it out later. “Too Deep” was supposed to be being written in chronological order, but I can’t get it out of me that way so I’m writing bits and pieces and will mash them up later, whereas with all the information in the werewolf story really needs to go backwards and forwards in time partially being told in flashback so the reader doesn’t get overwhelmed with all the past life aspects and back story, but it’s coming out almost chronologically so I’m going to have to rearrange that later too.

The main thing at this point that I keep reminding myself is this is First Draft this is not the final polished manuscript to send out, so it doesn’t matter that it’s not coming out the way I intend, the content is out, the story is there and this proves it. I can polish it up later. You don’t polish a table while you’re making it, you put the wood frame together, then you sand it down and then you varnish it and THEN you polish it.

Kore was asking me last night if I wanted critique that was honest and I’m going, “Of course!” that’s part of why I put sections up on LJ. It’s nice to hear from people that they’re interested in what’s going on but at the same time I know that it’s hard for me to look at the story from an outsider perspective and see where there are holes or things which are too confusing.

It looks as though I may “throw out” the whole first section. Not that it’s not going to be used, but that perhaps the story doesn’t need to start there. I threw out the original first section and put it into dialogue and flashbacks not all of which have been finished yet, but still the place that it’s starting brings in a lot of elements which could be too confusing because they’re touching on things which aren’t going to be really and thoroughly explored for a long time in the story. I’d wanted there to be some sort of link to that aspect of things so it’s not out of left field when it does come up but at the same time I don’t want the readers to have to be wading back to the first chapter to clarify something.

I’m fighting the urge now though to go back and edit, which is a hard one. As Kore points out most of the time you axe at least 10% of your first draft if not slightly more to smooth things out. At the same time I know I shouldn’t do that while I’m still writing the first draft otherwise it’ll start the vicious cycle I so often get trapped in of editing and editing and editing and never finishing.

It’s hard to have scheduled activities when you have an active toddler and a chronic health condition; but I figure that if I work things out properly I should be able to come up with a kind of floating schedule so that I can move things around as I need to, allot a couple of hours per day for free writing, a couple of hours per day for blogging and work-related activities, a few hours for chores and playing, and teaching the munchkin; that sort of thing, and it can be flipped around and things can be switched out and rotated depending on what’s going on at the house or with my health.

It’s a shame they don’t sell incontinence products for the mouth. I don’t want to gag him, but at the moment I’d love it if there was some little pill that would stop the verbal flow for just a half hour, that’s all I’m asking.

I don’t want to hear about the palm tree ANY MORE!

I’ve found myself experiencing nightmares, watching the events of the story unfold, and I’ve been tired, stressed and overall drained and no fun to be around.

It got so bad recently that my husband suggested that I give up writing all together, which brought about more upset because writing is one of the few things that I’ve wanted to do in my life ever, and the only one that I haven’t given up on. My dreams of being an astronaut went goodbye because of my health. My desire to be a vet wavered after I worked at a Humane Society and realized I just wouldn’t be able to do it. My dream of owning a New Age store, is still on the burner, but the fire is going out the more our finances go into hock.

Writing is my passion. When the depression and ill health got so bad that I had no inspiration and couldn’t write I felt crippled and diminished. The joy I’ve felt as I’ve been able to put pen to paper and hand to keyboard once more is insurmountable. I do not wish to give it up. I feel that will be worse than anything I could do for myself.

However, the stress, turmoil and grief, those are things which I know have to stop. I have to find a way to be able to convey my stories without living or re-living them so completely that I become overwhelmed. There has to be some way that I can write and enable my readers to experience these things without destroying myself; because that is not a good thing for anyone particularly me.