Ian Swenson .com

I haven’t been writing here much (not that I do otherwise) because I’ve been furiously penning fiction for NaNoWriMo. I’d love to post some of it here, but it’s a raw first draft. Some will be posted soon, I promise.

But for now I have a bit of a motivation problem. It’s starting to feel like one of those big papers I had to write in order to pass a class. I didn’t care about those. This I care about because it’s mine. It’s what I want to write. I have had these ideas ready to ink for ages and now I’ve actually begun.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not behind or anything. I’ve written just over 21,000 words, well over the minimum required for this time (16,000+ for the record). But most of it is what I considered the easy part. My initial idea for the book concerned essentially what I’ve now written. I always had the idea of how to start, but struggled with figuring out where and how to end it. I keep jumping from character to character, writing until I hit a block.

Now I’ve somewhat run out of the fun stuff to write and I’m delaying. I’ve written the bare minimum for the last four days, even though yesterday and today I’ve had plenty of time grind it out. I’ve even tried tricks to get myself going (like the wickedly wonderful Write or Die tool on kamikaze mode), but they’re temporary fixes at best.

So this is blog post is a catharsis of sorts. It’s admitting to myself (and the world) that I need to get going with this, fun or no.

I’m looking forward to the editing process. I’ve always been good at that. It’s this beginning part I suck at. Wish me luck! I mean it.