Distractions

I feel pretty good about the past week. There was a ton of stuff I should have done (read: studying for my immunology exam on Thursday, applied for more jobs, read my magazines, ect.) and I didn't complete all (or any?) of my goals, but I still feel pretty good. The novel editing is still going well, despite a definite slow down. I have something like five or six scenes to write left and I'm going to try and get them done before break ends so I can feel like something was accomplished. I managed to clean my room thoroughly for the first time since before break (I clean often, don't worry, its more about organization and things like that).

Having said that there were plenty of distractions this week, despite not having a social life. I didn't really want to see many people this week; not because I don't love people and spending time with them, but because I wanted to recharge and feel like myself again and I needed to do that alone. It was good in that respect because most of my floor was gone and I worked late shifts at the desk (though ahaha, 40 hours of work means PAYDAY). So it wasn't people who distracted me.

The obvious: TV. I started watching the British version of Being Human (and am annoyed that the American [well Canadian] version is set in Boston and I want to watch it now, but don't know if I can handle the changes) and loved it. Fantasy/Sci-fi shows are a place where you can have the sort of drama you get over loaded on in other TV. There are so many great elements to Being Human, and considering my novel, it is actually really helpful in making me think about other considerations for what's going to happen (vague enough for you?). Still, its distracting to have a new show, even a British show that isn't as long as the American half season. I haven't gotten half way through season 2 though, because I keep stopping and going and writing.

The not so obvious: Reading has not gone as well as I would have liked. I mean, I ripped right through The Art of War for Writers (a really good book for writers. Bell described it was filling in bits from his other books on writing, but to me it was a condensation of all the best tidbits about writing that I needed), but the fiction reading didn't go so well. Part of this is due to the fact that I would start reading at 4 am and then want to sleep, and part of it was due to wanting to write myself, and part of it, a small part of it, is that I can't read fiction the way I used to. Anyways this leads to disappointments in books that I think I would have liked before, but now find trite and unfortunately cliche (even when most would say they aren't). Certain plots gets under my skin in the annoying way, and I find it hard to focus on what is good.

And disappointment leads to other things. Two years ago I decided to use NaNoWriMo's deal with Amazon to get a proof copy of my novel that year (the book is called Pawn) and I picked it up yesterday and started reading. I picked it up because I was trying to get into the headspace of an action novel and I feel as if Pawn despite certain other flaws, has a lot of exciting and emotional action (one of my favorite scenes in it is an intense action sequence), and its probably my best action writing thus far. So I started rereading it.

I was surprised to find how complete Pawn was. My current project, EoW, is very incomplete -- it needs (needed) a lot of restructuring to make it novel shaped. Pawn read like a real novel. Sure things needed fleshing out, there were many spelling and grammar mistakes, and issues on that level, but it felt like the story was complete when I got to the last page (well ish, it ends on a cliffhanger).

So I'm having a minor crisis about EoW. I am suddenly unable to deal with the fact that its not complete and there was a section in the middle that I just didn't write because I was bored. If I'm bored writing it, how could anyone be interested reading it? (I qualify this by saying the actual scene writing isn't boring, but it takes a lot of effort for me to get into the right mindset to be writing these scenes and I feel as if overall plot has slowed down too much. I don't know how to fix this but will be examining it). Pawn never slows down. Its one thing to another to another, with lots of fighting, action, running, jumping and climbing up trees (one of the characters is a squirrel after all). Admittedly, Pawn is a children's (12+) book, where as I think that EoW despite its lack of sex and gore (some blood), is not a children's book (more an emerging adult, you know the 20-somethings generation), and the distinction makes me uncomfortable (I read young adult novels because they are better).

Anyways, this second distraction is what is stopping me from finishing the last five/six scenes of EoW and making me unsure I'm focusing on the right book...

Or maybe I'm handicapping myself.