New Novel Revelation

I played with my new novel during the edits of Destined Hearts. It was the only thing to keep me sane. Edits suck the life out of you. They aren’t fun by any means. They’re quite depressing, actually. You have to find a distraction and writing is the best distraction I can think of.

The new novel is an older story I started a few years back and got ‘stuck’ on. I never used to plot. I just sat down with idea in hand and wrote. It’s always worked but with the new novel, it didn’t for some reason. It’s probably why it sat dormant for so long. I played and fiddled until I hit a brick wall and couldn’t move forward. I let it sit but those characters kept whispering to me. They wanted their story told so I did something I’ve never done before. I made a story outline. A real one. LOL I have the story all plotted out now. I can see it from beginning to end with a glance through the cards I wrote it on. (Each scene is written on a different index card – thank you Holly Lisle *wink* )

By the time Destined Hearts was finished and published, I had a complete outline and a few thousand words. This past week, I hit another wall. I just could not get past the current scene. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong. So, I let it sit. I’ve watched more TV this past week than I have in the past month. I rarely watch TV. I haven’t for years.

After trying to think of ‘something’ to put down I glanced up at one point and sitting there in front of me was my index cards…still bound together like they were the day I finished writing them. I realized then I hadn’t touched them. Not once in writing this novel had I looked at those cards. I grabbed them, tossed away the rubber band and started skimming the scenes. Guess what I found? I was trying to write from memory. NOT from my outline. The point I was ‘stuck’ on led in to another scene. A scene I had forgotten about.

My muse came rushing home then. I read the card several times, closed my eyes and saw my original vision and now, I sit here with 9 new pages to my credit. 9 beautiful pages after a week of nothing.

There’s a lesson in this for me. Stop falling into bad habits. Stop trying to write on the fly and use the new knowledge I’ve gained. I’ll get this story finished and it won’t take me five years like the last one did. LOL I’ll have it finished by years end. It has to be. It already has a release date. August 2008. *bites nails*