Holy crap!  My head feels like it's about to fall off.  After adding 1200 words to my opening scene, and tweaking the rest of the scene (probably about 300-500 words total) I saw an e-mail from a couple friends in my writing group.  They'd sensed I was frustrated and suggested I just try explaining the story to them, that perhaps just writing an overview for another person might help things.  4000 words and several aneurism's later, I think they were right.  My head literally feels tired, rubbery, like a muscle that's been heavily exercised.  I haven't written that much since I was unemployed.  Oh right... I do have a job... and I was supposed to be working today... not writing stories about wargs... yeaaaaah.

Still, I feel flippin fantastic.

My big problem is I'm still near the beginning of the writing process.  I've got the basic plot, I've got the characters, and I've got an ending, but I still don't really think it's THE ending yet.  The basic pieces are all there, but the details are fuzzy and I just feel like its missing that emotional gutpunch I look for in my favorite books.  I'm working on drafts of my opening scene at the moment (just finished the second draft of version three) but I'm not sure on how to proceed from there.  If I just continue writing progressively from there, I may end up at the climax and still find it lacking necessitating a complete rewrite.  Also, experience has indicated I might not be one of those authors capable of writing scenes out of order and still manage to end up with a cohesive narrative whole.

It's frustrating, but right now I'm thinking the best thing to do is work on some short stories about these characters outside of my current story for character and worldbuilding purposes as well as a way to proactively procrastinate.  Frustrating as hell since I'm really excited about a lot of aspects of this story.

Are you writing daily ?

Not aimed at me I know but no, I haven't...  I, um... I'll get off the internet now.

Just started writing again last week after months away. Starting a new project, which is really just my old story post-facelift and I need a thread like this.  Only have 1100 words so far because I've run into problem after problem with minor plot devices.  Solved one tonight by replacing a few hundred words, but didn't get to write much new material before midnight rolled around.

I don't know what you're talking about with the whole thread drift thing.

On an unrelated note, I have an idea!

Jadis, the White Which of Narnia.

which Which?


Things Molly Carpenter is no longer allowed to do:

-play connect the scars on her venerable mentor whilst he is "meditating"
    -especially if said meditation requires that he be skyclad.

Not my point; I did say "most". While I should have added "much of the time", my point still stands - I would be willing to wager my income for the next five years that the majority of "bad", illegal or downright evil acts for which people refuse to indulge the impulse are avoided not out of moral/ethical principle but out of fear of punishment. The human being is not an inherently moral or ethical creature - those are constructs provided us by civilization. Some we recognize as a good thing and absorb wholeheartedly, while the rest we adopt as a matter of practicality (i.e., to avoid society's punishment).

In short, that "line" that most people won't cross is most likely NOT at as high an altitude that they would have the rest of us believe... or would have THEMSELVES believe.

I agree, and would add that the idea of "punishment" is far wider than any overt action by an authority figure.  

 - I didn't ask her out because I'm afraid it would change our relationship.
 - I can't be open with my homosexuality because it would hurt my Parents feelings.
 - I didn't eat that cheeto because I wanted my coworkers to think I'm health conscious.
 - I didn't bring up politics/religion/free-will in that conversation because I didn't want to touch off a huge debate that solves nothing and just pisses-off all parties involved.


It's not the reason for every decision, but fear of punishment/rejection/social-censure affects most people far more than they'd  probably like to admit.