How do I….

How do I keep with it? I have officially written one story of about 49,000 words. It’s not a bad story and needs to be edited. I look at it as a first step in the process. I can say I’ve written a novel. It’s not a short story (to long according to the Guru’s out there) and though its probably not quite long enough to be a trade paperback I’ll still call it my first novel. So I am officially part of the writer’s world.

Or am I?

Do you have to be published to become part of the Writer’s world? Do you have to have an agent? If someone asks me what I’m working on I tell them I’ve finished one novel and I’m getting ready to do another. This first novel will probably not turn out to be anything more than that novel in the drawer that all authors collect over time. So the trick now is to write a second book.

Or is it?

No really. That’s the goal right. Write one, write two, write three and so on and so forth. So, why can’t I get motivated to write a story and why am I struggling to find that perfect plot, the perfect character. Or better yet utilize that perfect character that’s in my head. I’ve tried writing a western, a sci-fi space opera, a military sci-fi, a fantasy, and finally a murder mystery. Nothing is clicking and the plots I come up with seem over the top and convoluted. So much so that even I’m bored about ten pages in. What gives? The first book went so smoothly. I was on fire and wrote every other day or so. Now I’ve noticed it’s like a week in between sessions.

I’ve visited blogs, I’ve visited Writer’s Digest.com, I’ve started reading some writing books and I’m devouring PI novels from Grafton and Parker because I think that is what I really wanna write. I mean really bad, I’m just having a hard time coming up with something original. So now I’m looking at the K.I.S.S. method, tryin to find a plot that’s easy. An introduction to the character…..and that leads me to the next problem. I wanna write a female main character. I even have one all picked out….but she’s just not working. There’s no flow, no feeling. So I’ve turned to a male character and he’s better but I feel sort of disconnected from him and I’d like to have that change.

So it’s back to drawing board I guess. I’ve picked up some books on developing character, one of them written by Orson Scot Card. Now its time to read them and see if I can breath new life into characters, the way I feel like I did with my first novel. I will say this, it is definitely harder than it sounds or looks. It takes a lot of hard work but I am determined to not be in the; “I had a good story once.” or the “I had this one character once and I was so gonna write.” camps. I wanna make this work, I wanna see my writing in print….even if I have to print it out myself!

Onward and upward and hopefully one foot in front of the other will lead to that perfect combination of character and plot that will then lead to being published! Thanks for listening.