Knowing when to stop

There's a point you reach when you realize that you're no longer making any forward progress. I've reached that point with my latest novel endeavour, Black Knight Towing. I've spent the last few months trying to pound out a story, but it's just not happening. Last year for NANOWRIMO I had used it as my subject and I ran out of steam with it as well. Maybe that's telling me something.

I know the general advice is to finish what you started, but it just isn't working. I'm spinning my wheels and I feel like I'm wasting the precious time before the World Fantasy Convention in November.

What the hell do I do now? Good question. Perhaps refocusing on what I want to write about. More reading, I know that with all the craziness in my life, the reading side of things has diminished, so that's an area I'd like to focus a bit more on.

Taking a few days off to write

Imagine that! With the renos and life in general getting in the way, I'll be taking three days off next weekend to write. I'm hoping to make some serious progress on my novel. Ideally by the middle of June, I'd like to have a couple of polished chapters that I can use for multiple purposes. Those purposes are the Toronto Arts Council and Ontario Arts Council grants, as well as my application to the Borderlands Writing Bootcamp. Wish me luck!

Still spinning my wheels...

I'm at a bit of an impasse. Lately, I've been turning all my attention to writing my novel. However, I've been having a lot of problems trying to plot the story. It really feels like I've got too many ideas for one novel and need to refocus. I'd also like to create a serial character, but the main problem I'm running into is where to start. Do I start with his origin or do I start with him as an experienced monster hunter?

Then the idea of creating a couple of chapter books surfaced and that actually seemed to work as I could create a chapter book of his origin and then one of a mission as an experienced monster hunter.

However, yes another however, I'm also eager to send in an application for the Borderlands Press bootcamp and they require the first two chapters of a novel. Sigh.

I guess I could pull the first two chapters from either of those chapter books to use as my writing sample. And actually, that might just work. The two chapters I send in don't have to be from the novel I want to workshop in the bootcamp. Just have to make sure that those two chapters are the best that I can produce.

Impasse overcomed. Now off to get some writing done!