I've been working on a YA contemporary fantasy novel since early last year, and I was doing really great...up until May of this year. I finished my first draft and was polishing the second draft. It was starting to feel like it was coming together and that it could be THE ONE to query to agents finally. Then I joined a writing workshop to get some feedback, and while the feedback was overall very positive and helpful, the leader of the group pointed out a vital flaw that really threw a wrench into everything. I mulled it over for several weeks without writing and decided that to continue writing it, I need to overhaul the entire world pretty much. Then a bunch of life stuff happened, and it's now been about five months since I've written a single word. It's not exactly writer's block, I just feel extremely discouraged and don't really know if I should continue on with this story and trudge through it or try something new entirely.
I'm wondering if anyone else goes through long periods of not writing? It's happened to me several times before for various reasons. I'd really love to get to the point where I'm religiously writing a chapter or more a day, but often I sit down with my manuscript and just stare at it, clueless at what to do. When I try to think of a new story to write, I can't really come up with anything that sounds more exciting than this story that's been sitting in my head for like a decade. But it's broken, and I just don't know if I have the confidence in myself as a writer right now to mend it back together.
I'm wondering if anyone else goes through long periods of not writing? It's happened to me several times before for various reasons. I'd really love to get to the point where I'm religiously writing a chapter or more a day, but often I sit down with my manuscript and just stare at it, clueless at what to do. When I try to think of a new story to write, I can't really come up with anything that sounds more exciting than this story that's been sitting in my head for like a decade. But it's broken, and I just don't know if I have the confidence in myself as a writer right now to mend it back together.