Not Standing Still

This has been an interesting time.

I've mentioned I've had a tough time on this project. I've got about 8-10 stabs at an opening scene. I tried different points in time, viewpoint characters, 1st person vs 3rd person, etc. and I hated all of them. In talking to people, I actually said that I hated all of them. They were poorly written; they didn't feel right; they were clumsy; and so on.

Uh, did I mention that I haven't attempted a full-scale writing project in a few years?

Yeah. I was saying this out loud to people (sometimes rather angrily). I'm thinking that the "out loud" part may have been important simply because of the subconscious implications. I haven't written a long-form project in years and with several attempts I've openly criticized the writing that was happening. And I wondered why things weren't improving.

I went from getting full scenes that weren't letter perfect on the first go, to writing start/stop scenes, then I'd end up with a paragraph or two before I'd say "This sucks!" Now? I haven't written a word of actual fiction. Sure, I've been researching like crazy, and have had a few mind opening twists that dramatically alter the story, but I have no words to show for it.

So, now I'm going to approach this quite differently. It may still be a while before I'm back to writing full speed, but I think I may be back on track.

**Edited to add: I went back through some of those false starts. They weren't near as bad as I thought. Sure, they're raw, a little too succinct, and there's some grammatical issue, but they are far from the piles of vomit I felt they were at the time.