Correspondence from the Front: WIP Update
Apr 19, 2010 
I’ve had several people lately go “So, uh, what are you actually working on?” I’ve been twittering like mad about my word count, and occasionally posting humorously poorly written excerpts, and very rarely talking about the actual content of the book. But I guess I haven’t ever really talked about what it’s about.
Well, if you’ve been wondering. . . . Sorry. You’re going to have to keep wondering. I’m just not really ready to broadcast it yet. A few people know every detail (Sarah, Amie) and a few others know the general idea (Kim, Ellen) but in general I’m still mulling. I realize perhaps it’s a bad thing to be still mulling when you’re 30,000 words into the piece, but there you have it.
I can tell you generally what it’s about, though. The working title is THE IRON WOOD, and that may or may not end up being its final title. It’s the first in a possible trilogy, and it is (for lack of a better term) science fantasy. It is also post-apocalyptic, and dystopian, and YA. It’s very different from my usual stuff, and I think that’s part of the reason I’m having so much fun writing it. Lark, my main character, is very unlike me–another difference from my usual work.
The shivery exciting part is that, right now in the story, location-in-the-world wise, she’s actually standing not far from where I sit writing this — just several hundred years into the future. It feels almost like I should be able to see her, picking her way through the rubble, like a ghost that doesn’t exist yet. Getting to write about what my world would be like then, given the circumstances that I’ve invented, is both exhilarating and totally terrifying. Because if I don’t get it right, it’s certainly not due to lack of knowledge or experience, as I’ve lived here my whole life.
Anyway, I’ve just recently finished act one of the story. It finishes with a tremendous bang (you’ll have to just wonder if that’s literal) and I admit I’m having some trouble getting going on the next act. I would love to hear some advice from you guys about what you do when you hit a stumbling block in your work. It’s not that I don’t know what happens, generally-speaking. It just feels like I’ve been holding my breath, writing this so frantically, and now that I’ve hit a spot in which to take a breath, I can’t find that gut-twisting tension again.
So, advice? What do you do when you need to reignite your excitement about a work? How do you brainstorm? What propels you through the less-exciting parts of your stories?
; ?>/i/tag@2x.png)
Usually, I get inspired to jump back into writing by some other artform–usually movies/tv. Today, I was totally not feeling this one part/character of QOG, but I saw this trailer for THE PILLARS OF THE EARTH and one of the characters looked SO much like a QOG character that it got me SO excited to write about him. Now I’m counting down the hours until work is over, and I can start working on QOG.
But if inspiration doesn’t strike, I’d just start writing–anything. Like, a scene where your mc is doing a menial task like cooking or lighting a fire or changing her clothes or someeething–usually, just by giving myself a location and an action, something will spark.
The reason why I write chronologically is because I NEED to have the reward of the super-exciting parts in order to get through the less exciting stuff.
…I’m not sure if any of this is considered advice, but GOOD LUCK! I’m sooo excited for your book!!!
No, that IS really good advice. A friend of mine was asking if I always wrote chronologically (thinking that if I skipped to something I felt better about, I might get inspired). My answer was the exact same as yours, that I have to use the super-exciting parts as a reward to get through the other stuff.
I totally agree about watching movies. I’m definitely going to do it. I have to remind myself sometimes that watching a movie isn’t necessarily slacking off… sometimes it’s a necessarily mental vacation!