Speed Bumps in the Road

I’ve been stuck on a story line for Book 5 in my mystery series, which happens with almost every book I write but it has been  stressing me out.

So I did what I have always done, put aside the new project  and went back to yet another full edit of books 1-4. Mostly just tweaking, making sentences read better, getting a smoother flow and rhythm with the words.

I’m 46 pages into first book, made several good tweaks, only found one typo. Most importantly, at the end of the day I’ve felt like I’ve been productive, which is something I needed.

I know this is neurotic, but when I am stuck on a story line, I feel like a failure, like I have nothing left to say, I’m washed up. Old childhood baggage, stuff for a shrink’s chair. Been there and done that.

The reality is I have known nothing but success with my writing, both fiction and sports writing. That being said, I hate the feeling of having done nothing positive during a day at the computer, although I know very well that the time spent searching for a story line is laying the ground work for a breakthrough and not wasted.

During all the hours I spend staring at the computer screen or out my window at the woods just beyond the backyard, my subconscious is working, ideas I don't yet see are percolating in my brain.

Put a gun to my head and I will admit that I am totally confident a great story line is on its way to me from the Void. It just hasn’t arrived yet, but it’s out there, postmarked by the Grand Master of the Void for Nathan Gottlieb, resident writer, Saugerties, N.Y.

Taking a break worked wonders for my second book, where I was stuck on my story line roughly half way through the outline and thought, oh well, this novel is dead. Then when I went back after a break, I felt refreshed and bingo, ideas came flooding out.

I guess this is the agony and the ecstasy of writing, at least the phase you have control of. A writer’s life is also tormented by forces outside your control, such as the debilitating and often humiliating process of acquiring an agent, which leaves one feeling like a beggar. Then once you have one, and he/she sends your book out to a publisher, you go through another long wait hoping your agent’s query brings a request for a full manuscript to read, which then can take an additional few months of waiting. All the while you are in a sort of writer’s hell, or more accurately purgatory.

I guess you have to be nuts to write a novel. What sane person would do it? Fortunately, I have never been accused of being sane, and being a nuts writer sounds better to me than being a Home Depot clerk who happens to be whacked (I love Home Depot, not disparaging the company, no hate mail please).

Is it me, or are there similarities between writing novels and marriage: there are moments you dread and hate and moments when you are madly in love. Problems arrive, solutions come; y0u want to bail out, and yet fear losing something so important to you. So I guess I am married to my work. In sickness and in health, ‘til death do us part…Hopefully not anytime soon, thank you.