When it's all too much
So I've run into this problem with my manuscript. Usually when I write, I become blocked when I don't have enough information or I don't fully understand the themes or the characters. But right now, the opposite is true - I have too much of everything.
Recently, I've been doing a lot of research: reading books about the setting of my novel, collecting articles, surfing the Web, and last weekend I even visited the mountains where the book takes place. I talked to the people who lived there. I wandered the cemeteries and read the gravestones. I visited memorials, the sites of reported hauntings, hangings, and massacres.
And do you know what I learned?
Too much.
I met people whose lives were far more fascinating than anything I could write. I saw places far more beautiful than words could ever describe. I felt the vastness of a country that could never be captured in fiction. And it was all just so overwhelming and beautiful and surreal that I felt writer's block hurtling toward me in a new, scary way. I have themes. I have plots. I have history and legends and personal accounts of growing up in the southwest.
But I'm afraid I can never do it justice.
Do you ever have this problem? Do you ever feel that your characters/setting/plot might just be too much for you to handle?
Recently, I've been doing a lot of research: reading books about the setting of my novel, collecting articles, surfing the Web, and last weekend I even visited the mountains where the book takes place. I talked to the people who lived there. I wandered the cemeteries and read the gravestones. I visited memorials, the sites of reported hauntings, hangings, and massacres.
And do you know what I learned?
Too much.
I met people whose lives were far more fascinating than anything I could write. I saw places far more beautiful than words could ever describe. I felt the vastness of a country that could never be captured in fiction. And it was all just so overwhelming and beautiful and surreal that I felt writer's block hurtling toward me in a new, scary way. I have themes. I have plots. I have history and legends and personal accounts of growing up in the southwest.
But I'm afraid I can never do it justice.
Do you ever have this problem? Do you ever feel that your characters/setting/plot might just be too much for you to handle?