All consumed in...

writing my "book".

I really don't know what to write about today because all I can think about is the "book". (I keep calling it a "book" because really, it's not a book yet, but I want it to be). All day, I've been thinking about what to write about on this blog, but I've got nothing. My mind keeps drifting back to the story that I'm finally writing after keeping it in my head for ages.

But writing the book isn't as easy as it seemed when it was just in my head. When it's in your head, everything's perfect and in order, and everything makes sense. When you actually start writing thought, it's a totally different story.

A week ago when I started writing, I got about 2 chapters (plus a prologue) in before being completely stuck. It's like you know exactly how everything will go in your head, then you start writing and nothing is coming together. The first 2 chapters just weren't what I wanted them to be. Everything was completely wrong, I didn't get it. I thought I wanted it to be this way, but it's just not working. After 2 days of just wondering where things went wrong and how I could fix it, I just decided it'd be way easier to start with a clean slate. I deleted everything and started over with a new approach. Then things started clicking.

I never really understood what authors meant when they said they'd write something and it didn't work at all. I used to think what do you mean? If it doesn't work, you can just fix it... Are you just being dramatic? But now I know. When something doesn't work, it doesn't work; no matter how hard you try to fix it, it won't work if it's not right.

That's how I've been feeling this past week. I'll write a chapter over night, be completely satisfied, then the next morning, figure it's just not right. I've rewrote so many things these last couple of days.

And it's hard to hold back and let your characters discover the world for themselves. Since I'm writing sci-fi/dystopian, I've been doing a lot of world building and creating all these little/big secrets about the world, and my main character doesn't know them yet, but as I'm writing, I'm writing the character through my eyes, not theirs. So when I go back to edit, it's all wrong. It's difficult because sometimes I forget things (like she doesn't know this is happening around her, or she doesn't understand that yet, etc.). It's so hard because I know so much about the world they live in and they don't know much about it. I always have to remind myself (constantly, like every few sentences) that they don't know, and they have to learn as they go.

So anyways, if you're planning to write a book, beware– this struggle is way too real.