Know that point in a story ...

... where you're kind of grasping for something, anything, to just keep the book going forward until you get your momentum back and get the thing back on track and going in a direction its actually supposed to go?

Yeah, that's where I am right now with my current book, Deception.

I almost feel as if I've lost track of the story and just need to keep writing and things will start to fall into place again, and then I can get rid of the crappy stuff when revision comes around.

Altogether, though, knowing that writing the last word on the last page does not, in any way, shape, or form mean that this book is complete does not make me feel better about how lousy the story is right now. The writing itself isn't bad, I don't think, save for the fact that the story is just rambling along aimlessly and completely without direction.

This is why they say padding a story shows. It does. I'm not trying to make it longer at the moment; given that it seems to me that little has happened and I'm already halfway through, length is not a concern of mine. If anything I'm probably going to have to cut out a lot. But what I'm writing now is, really, filler. It's to fill in the blanks, get something down on paper, until I can pick up the action again and tie the story back together.

Does anyone else have this issue? (I'll refrain from linking yet again to Holly Lisle's piece on middles, which always makes me feel much better about my inability to write the middle of story coherently.

x-posted to my LJ

Inevitable

It's inevitable; I get going on writing something and then start second-guessing and saying "well, I think I might be able to write this other story better than the one I'm working on now" or "I really think this other idea might sell better than the one I'm working on now."

And this time it's not even that what I'm writing isn't cooperating; it is. I wrote over 6,000 words in two days and, granted, I've since slowed down, but it's still coming. So it's not frustration. I think it's just self-doubt. And it's totally annoying.

But the only way I'm going to get past it is if I stick to what I'm doing and just git 'er done, right? So I'm going to be optimistic and say that I'm going to write this and the first agent I send it to is going to fall in love with it and it'll sell for six figures at auction.

Not that I actually believe all that (I really, really try not to delude myself) but if I'm going to think positive, I may as well go all the way, right?

Agents who don't rep suspense

Why is it that the agents I just love - Nadia Cornier, Rachel Vater, Kristin Nelson, Jenny Rappaport, Lori Perkins - don't rep my chosen genre, suspense? I'm trying to figure out if suspense is just not as popular a genre among agents or if agents who rep suspense just don't blog as much. I mean, there are a few - the gals at BookEnds, the Knight Agency - who do suspense, and I like them. But it's disappointing to see that so many of the agents I feel familiar with don't rep my genre.

And then there's Miss Snark, who seems like she would and who I feel like I'd love to have as my agent, but the whole not knowing who she really is thing makes it kind of difficult.

And, yeah, I just totally felt like whining.

And, an update on my post from a few hours ago. I put my political fiction on hold. I really think that, career-wise, starting out in the genre I ultimately want to end up in.

Focus

Why is it that I'm incapable of focusing on one project at a time? I have the book I'm working on -- that is going fairly well, mind you, save for the characters still being sorta flat (but I figure I can fix that on revision, once I know them better) -- but I've got a great idea for another book, that I've written half a synopsis for. (I'm sure the synopsis will change as I write but I figure this might give me some guidance for when I actually start writing.)

It's like I get bored with what I'm working on and want to move on to something else, but that isn't very conducive to actually completing a book and trying to get it published now is it?

Not a bad day...

Got a fair amount of work done today; a fair amount of writing done as well. As I write this, though, I'm not convinced it's falling firmly into the thriller genre; I just don't think my writing is tight enough, fast-paced enough. I don't see a sense of urgency in the writing yet.

I think part of the problem is that it's building up to things; things are happening, but nothing big and important that demands the quick pace and the can't-wait-to-turn-the-page type of reading. I'm hoping a couple things: 1) it feels more drawn out than it is because I'm writing it a couple thousand words at a time, 2) I can tighten it up when I go through revision.

Otherwise... hmm.

I'll just make a couple friends read it when I'm done and see what they think from a reader perspective.