Back on Track!

Good news! No, great news! I've finally received the inspiration needed to overcome this writing dry spell I've found myself in the past months (almost a year…), and it feels so good! Last post was all about how boring my most recent story was turning out to be, so I took a break. A long break. After a couple months and a few long talks with many of my family members (Husband, Mom, Dad, sisters, Grandma - thank you!) I finally found the inspiration I needed to get me started again! And boy, does it feel good to write again. I am loving it.

I ended up having to change a lot of the story I had before, fixing plot points, altering characters, and making it all much more interesting, so I basically scrapped the 70+ pages of writing I had and started over. I hope it turns out better than what I had before!

Having a baby to take care of 24/7 is also making it harder to write, so I've come up with a way around it to make it easier. For me, in order to write, I have to completely immerse myself in the story. I have to know what has happened before, what will happen after, and what is happening during the part of the story I'm writing. I need to know each of the character's feelings, who is present, where they're going, who's going to be talking, etc. So it's been hard for me to get in to the moment of the story I'm writing when I have to stop to pick up my daughter, pull her away from the bookshelf, pick up her toy she dropped, or put her to sleep, and then go back to my story and completely lose my place. Needless to say, it's been difficult for me.

So I'm having to adapt how I write, and I changed my normal ways to make it possible for me to get into my writing much more quickly. I ended up writing an in-depth outline of the story. Now, I write outlines for all my stories, but this was an in-depth, in-depth outline. As in, I have a summary of the summary of the summary of each scene (literally), so I can get into where I am quickly. And it has already helped! My outline ended up being 32, 620 words. Yes, it's like a book in itself (as my husband pointed out). And it has helped me so much.

I can't wait to continue writing this story I've been working on, and I hope to be finished with the first draft within a couple months! It's been so long since my last book came out, May 2012, and so much has happened since then to keep me from writing (school, graduation, husband's masters degree program, low self-esteem, pregnancy, first baby, work, house work, cooking, cleaning, moving, missions, family, and so much more), but it feels great to be finally back on track! And hopefully I can make it last for good now. Keep a look out on the blog to find more updates on the novel I'm working on, and hopefully I'll be able to reveal more as I keep up the writing!

Thanks for reading!