Snow job
Maryn said:
I know, I know. I just have trouble giving myself permission to do such a thing, since I've written myself into a corner more than once. (I'm still there, too.) But it's snowing hard and I don't want to go anywhere, so maybe today's the day to take the plunge, eh?Maryn
You'll be okay. All writers get stuck at times. But for me the temptations to slink away are endless. In Houston we can't use the excuse of being snowed in to force ourselves to the keyboard. Today it will be about 68F. Sigh.
I also suggest that you may try to skip forward in the book to a chapter that particularly interests you -- a certain sequence or plot event. I do this all the time.
For example, in my 3rd novel, now in progress, I am now writing a few chapters that encompass my private detective protagonist and his erstwhile girlfriend. He's from Houston and is now staying in Austin a few weeks, visiting an old college pal who's being threatened. The gal he's been dating drives up to Austin for the weekend, and they get together for dinner.
He's nervous about this since she's now staying at a hotel, and it's in his mind that this may be the night for sex to finally rear its head. So those thoughts pester him during the evening.
For some reason, this sequence of the story line intrigued me, so I skipped ahead and now I'm writing those 3-4 chapters.
Later, I'll probably need to "interrupt" the romantic evening -- his college pal phones in panic -- maybe the house has been vandalized in a drive-by, or some such -- and the romance will have to be put on hold.
You can see how my plot-brain is bubbling along with this. By simply starting to write a certain series of middling chapters, I'm already coming up with ideas on how to drive the overall story.
This skip-ahead technique has always worked for me when I hit a dry spot.
If that fails, I shut off the computer and go drink beer, play pool, chase women, or some other meaningful enterprise. The novel can wait a while.