Book in Progress — Part Two: Too Much Inspiration?

Hello and welcome back to the book in progress series! This is the series where I talk about what I’m writing, the challenges I’m facing, how I plan to overcome them, but overall, I complain about everything that’s going wrong.

The reason I have been MIA for the past month is because I have been fast drafting. In my free time I can either write a blog post or I can chip away at my draft. Of course, I choose the draft.

In fact, I was so busy fast drafting that I had no idea camp nano started. I usually prefer camp nano over the actual nanowrimo, and though it’s not too late to jump in, I think I’ll just continue writing the same way I have been this past month.

I have forsaken the goal of word count and focus only on finishing the story. If I end the first draft with 30,000 words, then so be it.

After the last book in progress, I hit a wall. Then I had the random idea to re-write the first few chapters which were, as I mentioned in the last post, flops.

They aren’t much better, but at least it helped me get over my block. After jumping from chapter six to chapter one (I was having a hard time getting past those few), I pushed through about three more chapters, before I hit another wall. Which had to do with my protagonist’s two friends.

My secondary characters are driving me CRAZY! I’m growing to hate them with every chapter. My Protagonist is great! With the exception that his arc is weak, but that’s thanks to my secondary characters. They’re supposed to help him develop his arc, but instead they’re hindering him. I’m almost tempted to remove them completely, if I didn’t need them so much. Unfortunately, there are some scenes that can’t go without them.

Apart from that, my plot is wonky. I can’t really go any further, but I am so full of motivation for this project, just not enough inspiration. I have so much passion for this book… I’m almost obsessed. All I want to do is write, but I don’t know what to write about.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so strongly about a project. There’s just something about it, I don’t know what, but I love it!

Unfortunately, I’m going to have to take a short break to work on my weak secondary characters, the plotline, and my protagonist’s arc.

This post is a lot smaller than I intended, but stay tuned for the next book in progress where I take you along as I outline.

Thanks a bunch!

— Nerd