Would It Help If I Bashed My Head Against The Wall A Few Times?

Hey, I almost had an achievement!

-Dutch from the video game "Halo 3: ODST"

Damn!  Damn!  Damn!  With some more Damn!  And a side-order of Damn with an extra heaping dollop Damnitty-Damn-Damn-it-all-to-hell!!!

Now that I've got that out of the way... I'm stuck!  (And not like "Timmy fell down the well" kind.)

So I've talked about my goal of having all my story blogs (as represented by the lovely tabs above) with 2011 posts and then by the start of the new year (which is frakkin two weeks away) to update all the story blogs on a somewhat more regular basis.

All that was left was my "Wheels" story blog (which has the least on it since it was started last with much intention to have more on it than it actually does), but it's proving to be more difficult as time goes on.

The story on there that it posted is not my best work, but hey... it was my first try with my brother's prompt generator.  (One of these days I will remember to post a pic of it).  But that's what happens when you try something new, right?  With each attempt you hopefully get better and better.

I'm not sure attempt number two will be any better than the first one.

With the bits I was given via the "Wheels" prompt generator, I looked at it and thought "How the frak am I going to be able to make anything from that?" 

Then I started writing.

Then I had to kill someone.

Now this couldn't be just a regular "oh someone got mugged and a gun accidentally went off" kind of thing.  The killing was intentional.  And the killer isn't caught. 

But there's more.

The murder turns out to be one of a string that have happened.

And a civilian is supposed to track down the bastard responsible.

You heard me.  A civilian. 

I feel like I'm kind of out of my element on this one since I'm not really a suspense/mystery writer.  I'm more of the slice of life, stuff that's sort of happened to me but altered a bit, sci-fi/fantasy/horror-ish weirdo.  Straight up murder mystery writing is not my thing.

First I tried my hand at several beginnings... and eventually settled on one (for the moment though I'm still not happy with it).  Then I introduced the victim that starts it all and how that person died.  Then I transitioned back to the main character and how he's found other victims and their link...

And that's where it ends.

Now the intro bit took a while.  Eventually I beat the crap out of my OCD, made a couple notes, and forced myself to move on.  The next part took a bit of reworking and OCD brow-beating to move on from there.  (I was stuck with how to kill the victim.)  When I got to the last part, I was having issues with what the main character would do.  Would he stay where he was?  Would he relocate?  What kind of person would he be compared to before? 

Blah de blah de blah...

I have to say though I have been most impressed with the last bit that I wrote.  It was all coming together nicely, flowing from my mind through my fingertips over the keys.

And now... I'm stuck.

Being a writer, I'm also a book lover and being so have been to various author events.  One author once said that there was no such thing as "writer's block"... that you're basically just stuck until you work through it and are unstuck.  Since I heard that, I don't like using the term "writer's block".  It sounds kind of negative and defeated-like.

Which is kind of how I feel right about now.

Every time I open the story doc, the cursor just blinks at me in a belittling way that makes me want to smack it with a truck the size of Texas.

Meanwhile the voices in my head have been stirring.  The kids are getting rather chatty.  They haven't knocked on my door so far in their "Mommy!  Look at me!  Look at me!" way but I can hear their murmurs.

There's IC and GA as well Chloe and my NaNoWriMo novel attempt from last year.  There have also been stirrings from the novel project Jim G. asked me to co-write with him.  (That's been sort of put on hold due to life being a little on the chaotic side.)  Some of my other kids have been making a little noise, but I'm hoping they can either entertain themselves long enough to let me finish this story or possibly offer some insight as how to proceed.

Maybe I can find some help in a bottle of beer.

Now if I just had some beer.

Later my lovelies.

Have Goodness!
Rae