Kicking Cabinets

On Today's Menu:
Forget the menu, I'm trying to write!


I've signed my contract, and have the first half of the advance. Nice! Feels grrreat!

Like a good writer, I've kept my September deadline in mind and started writing the story where I left off in my proposal. A solid chapter three has taken form, plus an assortment of scenes that come later. Since this is a novella, I think it'll be a minimum of 10 chapters, depending on word count. The maximum for this book is 20,000 words. Right now my book is around the 6600-word mark, about a third.

And I think in its current form it stinks. I've got my synopsis, my road map. But my characters feel like marionettes on a stage, flopping around at my direction. Inside my head, I see the story playing out on a screen, scene by scene. Why don't the words come so vividly?

So I've given myself a time-out to see what's wrong. Maybe I haven't given my characters enough free rein to show their emotions. Or have I not placed them firmly enough in their setting, in northern California wildfire country? At any rate, I picked up a new book I bought at Barnes & Noble on Memorial Day. It's a mystery/suspense, by an author I haven't read before. It's good, it draws me in already.

I think I just need to relax and write. Hopefully these holes will fill themselves in. Plus I hope the characters will cut their strings and live the story on the pages for me.

Now I know what Brandilyn Collins means about kicking cabinets.

I have people counting on me, not just my own personal goal to finish this story and finish well. It's a little scary. But this is what I've longed for! I'm so glad I'm not going it alone.