I decided to go with the flow like I talked about in my last post and I’ve gotten nowhere with my WIP. Something isn’t working with this story. I find myself constantly starting over and I’m sick of it.
My work in progress is a rambling mess, and, yes, I know what you’re thinking: But Jen, your first draft is supposed to be a mess. You’ll fix it in the rewrite. Yeah, maybe. Or I just might be wasting my time. Who the hell knows. The one thing I’m certain of is that my current WIP is page upon page of events happening but no real story.
I thought about signing up for NaNoWriMo and starting again, banging out another 50K words this month, but it would be just another 50K words of random shit happening with no real reason as to why, so I decided to go a different route.
Recently, I bought a copy of Story Genius by Lisa Cron. I promised myself that I wouldn’t buy another writing how-to book until I finished my first draft. I love books on writing, but most of the time they end up becoming just another form of procrastination rather than a useful craft tool.
According to the back cover copy of Story Genius, this book “takes you step-by-step from the first glimmer of an idea to an expansive, multilayered cause-and-effect blueprint–including fully realized scenes.” So instead of participating in NaNo this month, I’ll be working my way through this book.
Hopefully, by the end of the month I will know more about the story behind all the events happening in my current WIP and maybe finally complete this first draft.
