I'm writing...some things

I think you're overcomplicating things for yourself. I would say just write it. The voice might start to come naturally once you're about a quarter of the way through, or at least you'll figure out the character enough to know what the voice should be like. Then rewrite the beginning. And as far as structure, that is also something you can mess with in a rewrite.

Either that or this just isn't the right project for you.

Yeah, I've had short story ideas pop into my head while writing a novel. With novels, I try to be consistent more than fast. I've been able to write shorts while also working on a novel (and sometimes this helps me get out of a block). Play around with your schedule and see if it works.

I'm distracted all the time lol I say, shut off everything you don't need like TV, put on music that inspires you to write and think about your novel. Visualize what is going to happen next, and when you are satisfied, try to put your visual into words. And don't worry about the voice or sounding "bad" or anything. Just get your words down first.

It really sounds like you have fear of starting. I suggest you try being fast rather than consistent, until you have momentum. Then you can switch to being consistent while still having some forward motion. Right now you're consistently going nowhere.

DancingMaenid said:

I've had a bit of a dilemma lately.

I'm "working" on a novel. That is, I've been planning it for a while and have written a little bit here and there, but I'm still below the 5k mark in terms of word count. If I sit down and really focus, I can work on it.

But I keep getting distracted by other writing projects, mainly short stories. I have no problem writing in general, and have been doing well lately (I managed over 600 words during my lunch break today). I'm just not making progress on my novel.

On the one hand...I write for fun, so if I'm enjoying working on these other projects more, I don't want to beat myself up over it. But on the other hand, I do want to finish this novel at some point, and I suspect part of why I've been gravitating toward other things is because this novel is tricky to write. I've been struggling with the voice a bit, and the structure is more experimental than I'm used to.

Has anyone come up against this?

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Uh, well, there's some things you can try. Since my hard drive died on my laptop, I've had to write in a notebook and type up stuff at the library. Notebooks of course are impossible to edit like in a writing program, so all you can do is charge ahead and put stuff on paper. This will force you to go ahead, and if you work on it long enough, it will recharge your passion.

Or maybe you shouldn't work on it right now. You don't appear to have run dry on inspiration (maybe on the border of that), so take what inspiration you have and write out some chapter notes. Like two or three sentences per chapter. That way, when you feel like you're in "writer mode" or you know you need to write and your inspiration is gone, all you have to do is write up what you wrote in the notes. Not that you ever have to follow your notes to a T, of course.

I am considering skipping the beginning for now. I hate to do it, because I'm a chronological writer. But it's the main thing I'm struggling with at this point. A lot of my frustration is that I have large parts of the novel that are plotted out and that I really want to write, but I'm stuck on the beginning, which is much more challenging.

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Uh, if it helps you continue, go ahead, but in my experience, doing that usually means that whenever I eventually get back to the beginning, I write stuff that impacts the later and causes it to have to change. Hm....well, maybe plan it out in your head. If you can make "fence posts" in the plot, it'll be easier to fill in the gaps later. You may just have to sit down and force yourself to think of a general plan before writing anything out.