Making Necessary Adjustments - AKA A Plethora of Plotbunnies
Originally published at K.T. Hanna - The Scribble Muse. You can comment here or there.
Last year, in June, I finally figured out my writing process. After many, many years of floundering along - I finally happened upon the ‘what works for me’.
I wrote and wrote, edited and edited. Sent out to beta readers and CPs, and wrote some more while I waited. This process allowed me to produce a good quality final draft, which my agent loved and signed me for.
Toward the end of this, I found out I was pregnant. We were trying, so it wasn’t a complete shock. I’d just resigned myself to the fact that it wasn’t going to happen. Which was fine - I mean, I’d finally found my writing process and I had an agent!
But being pregnant has been far more difficult than I thought it would be. Getting my brain to cooperate almost seems fruitless sometimes. It just won’t focus, and no amount of forcing it to, will make it.
Edits in this state of mind? Almost non-existent. I can’t seem to access the analytical brain I usually use for those. And I mean it - I rip my own work apart. For some reason I have the ability to get a distance from my work that allows me to say: Self - this is crap. Rewrite, restructure, rephrase… etc. But although I can see what I need to adjust - my brain is having major difficulty actually executing the adjustments. And if I try to adjust, I know I’ll hate it and just rip it apart again at a later date.
It’s very frustrating.
However, writing doesn’t pose this problem. It’s purely creative. I outline, develop characters, plot and then write. And it flows, and it works - just like it always has (since June 2011 anyway).
So, instead of stressing myself silly over what I can’t seem to do - I decided to work on one of my plethora of plotbunnies (and yes, plethora is the correct term here).
So far so good. First scene down, outline done. And I’ll dive into character creation and plotting over the rest of the week.
However, this leaves my June goals far from where I wanted them to be.
- Finish the 2nd draft of TDP 2
- Outline A.I. 3
- Figure out what I’m doing with my blog
- Be more attentive to friend’s blogs/other writing blogs.
I will not finish the 2nd draft of TDP 2. Sorry to those waiting. It’s not off the burner completely, just simmering while I figure out how to compensate for my lack of brain. I’ve outlined F instead of A.I. 3 and can outline A.I. 3 next month. Still haven’t figured out what I’m doing with my blog, and I’m being woefully neglectful of other blogs.
This will hopefully change come July! By the way, if you’ve not signed up for July’s Writemotivation yet, please do so!
And then I can worry about dealing with the creative process once baby is born and my time to write is severely diminished. But bridges when we come to them, right?
How have you dealt with upheaval in your life and the creative process?