botheration

[truepenny]

I'm stuck.

In theory this should not bother me, because I'm supposed to be working on my dissertation anyway, and not haring off after the siren-call of fiction, but over in the real world, Truepenny starts getting a little like Jack Nicholson in The Shining if she goes too long without writing, and nobody wants that.

Which is where the writer's block becomes a serious issue.

My problem is that, with this new novel(la)-y thing (DL is just stuck, and it's going to have to stay that way until either (a.) a brainstorm hits or (b.) the dissertation is done), I worked out the emotional plot--not in exorbitant detail, but with its scaffolding of bones so that I knew what I was hanging the details off of--but I didn't bother so much with the plot part of the plot, i.e., the exterior stuff that makes the emotional stuff possible, a piece of fecklessness which has returned to bite me in the ass. Because I've got to the point where I have to play at least one of my cards, and I don't even know what I'm holding. It's rolled itself up into this hedgehog-like ball and refuses to uncurl.

So I'm feeling put-upon and grumpy, and after a week or so of lovely cool weather, summer seems to be checking back in.

I'll go to the library this afternoon and be virtuously academic in the air-conditioning. Maybe I can lull the hedgehog into a false sense of security.

Comments

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

Truepenny starts getting a little like Jack Nicholson in The Shining if she goes too long without writing, and nobody wants that.

Having met you, this is way too easy to envision.

Me, I just get grumpy. And lose sleep. And the people whose stories I'm not telling try to come out in other ways. Which can really bugger up a scientific paper.

Have you tried the trick--

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

--of forbidding yourself to write fiction for a week?

That one almost *always* works for me. It's the contrariness of the human psyche at work.

Re: Have you tried the trick--

[truepenny.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but I should have that vibe going already, what with the MUST FINISH DISSERTATION BY SEPTEMBER thing.

I think my subconscious is on to that trick.

Re: Have you tried the trick--

[matociquala.livejournal.com]

Oh, September. Plenty of time... *g* I'm sure you can knock that thing out in a week....

Deadlines...

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

...usually do it for me. Deadlines on anything but the writing, that is.

[oracne.livejournal.com]

I think I remember you doing a lot of diss. work before this latest spurt of fiction, so maybe your mind has set itself up this way for now.

Maybe you need litcrit mixed in with the fiction,and the backbrain work of one is going on while you're doing the other.

[elisem.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that is a shiny idea.

Truepenny, perhaps the hedgehog will find the sound of dissertation-hammering soothing or otherwise helpful. (I used not to be able to get to sleep well unless I could hear trains nearby. Preferably switching, which is a distinctive set of noises. Besides which, there's the way that one kind of work can help settle the mind, or soul for that matter, for another kind. For some folks, anyhow.)

Yes!

[vass]

I used not to be able to get to sleep well unless I could hear trains nearby.

For me it's traffic. It's a peaceful noise for me, like the sea.

I live on a tiny little street off another tiny street now, and it's so quiet I can't get used to it.