remind me again why I keep writing?

[edenfalling]

One of the more frustrating parts of writing is when you know what happens next, but you can't figure out how it happens. I am stuck on this point in three completely different stories right now. It's maddening.

At a certain point in this cycle, I give up and start writing complete inanity -- of the "and then they flew around the hill, and Daphne literally ran into a Longhorn dragon, and the dragon went "Rawr!" and tried to gore her with its horns and Apple bravely distracted it while Daphne was frozen in terror, and then there was a commotion as the staff of the dragon reserve saw what was going on, and then the dragon started to chase them and they flew back around the hill, and it turned out all-consuming terror was a really good way to get through a Confundus spell without losing track of what they were doing, and then they were being chased over the lake by a huge dragon and the three male dragons that wanted to mate with her were also chasing them, and so were the dragon handlers including their cousin Alexandria, and then... actually I have no idea what happens next, bugger, I need to outline that."

...

Okay. So that's what happens near the climax of "The Dragon Debacle," just FYI. It's nice to have that on paper. Except I still have to -- somehow -- turn that mess into a scene.

...

*beats head repeatedly against table*

Comments

[isis]

I am right at that point now in my Yuletide story. *sigh*

[edenfalling]

You have a month! You can do it!

[musesfool]

It's a terrible hobby. I don't know why any of us do it!

[edenfalling]

It really is! Unfortunately, the only worse hobby is NOT writing. *sigh*

[lady_songsmith]

*slides pillow under your forehead*
Extreme sympathies. I have 16 pages of that, complete with interjections of the 'bugger I need to outline' variety actually written in. But you'll get it! I have faith in you!

[edenfalling]

I am sort of simultaneously amused and appalled at myself every time I hit a point in a story where I go utterly blank and write something to the general effect of [SWORDFIGHT GOES HERE] or [ILGAMUTH QUOTES VAGUELY RELEVANT POETRY] or [DESCRIBE TEREZI IN A THREE-PIECE SUIT] or whatever else I can't deal with at the moment. *wry*

We will all conquer our stories in the end! *resolve face*

[transposable_element]

Right now I'm stuck on something I'm writing because I haven't been able to find out what kind of music the choir would have performed and what carols or hymns the congregation would have sung at midnight mass at St. Paul's Cathedral, London, on Christmas Eve in 1949. You see, I just know that once I have this vital information I will be able to finish!

[edenfalling]

Oooh, I hate getting stuck that way. *cheers you onward in your research*