Lost For Words.

It's not often I write on my blog two days running, but I've hit a very frustrating snag with one of my writing projects and I wanted to vent about it. I could have done this privately and approached friends, but then this particular difficulty would be lost and forgotten. When I started this blog, I promised I'd share everything about my writing process, both positive and negative, to help other beginners feel less alone. Even if nobody ever reads this, it will still be good for me to look back on, once I've got past this, to remind myself that there is no writing obstacle that can't be overcome.

Writer's block is a difficulty we all face at times. Writer's block towards the end of NaNo month when time is running out to hit that word target is infuriating, but nothing I haven't overcome before. The main reason why I'm so disheartened today is that I have had a specific project in mind for some time, one that I documented in my blog, but I can't even seem to get started on it. I'm talking specifically about the children's book I plan to write about a transgender child with the aim of helping children better understand gender dysphoria. I've put it off for over a month, not knowing where to start, but today I decided to give it a shot. I've been typing and deleting opening sentences all day. Every single one has read so terribly that I could punch myself in the face.

Unlike some, who see it as a hobby, I hate clothes shopping. (Bear with me here. There is a link. I promise I haven't gone completely off the wall just yet.) When it's absolutely essential that I buy a new item of clothing, I always know exactly what I want, the idea being that I can go into the shop, buy the thing and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible. In reality, it never works that way. The more specific I am about what I want, the less likely it is that I find it, with the exception of generic items that you can find just about anywhere. This is the perfect analogy for what I'm going through with this project.

Because there's a specific story I want to write, and I want to make sure it conveys its message perfectly, the words just aren't there. The subject of trans rights is something I feel needs to be raised and understood more widely. We need to live in a world where everyone, regardless of individual differences can just be themselves and live their lives without fear. I want to do anything I can do to help in the movement towards this. If I mess this up, I'll have failed to do everything in my power to help that cause.

So, what's wrong with today's attempts? Well, the first sentence was never interesting enough. I think we can all agree that the opening line of a book is important. It needs to make the reader want to engage and invest in the story as a whole, particularly with something as short as a children's picture book where the opening lines account for a larger percentage of the manuscript. There's really not much room for redemption with a book like that if the opening line is shit. If you were a literary agent or a publisher and a manuscript landed on your desk with a substandard first line, you wouldn't bother reading the rest, would you? It would go straight in the bin. 

I'm not exactly dead set on making this one rhyme. My book on racial equality doesn't rhyme and I'm pretty pleased with how it reads. But whichever way I try this one, rhyming or not, the opening sentences I've tried have all been really weak. It's one of those days when becoming a successful author seems like nothing but a pipe dream. The fact that I've sworn on here that I'm going to write this book will make it all the more embarrassing if I don't manage it. 

There are times when I want to backtrack and scale down to just writing the novel, forgetting all other projects entirely. There are times when I feel like I'm attempting too much. Maybe I am. But the ambition is there. I can't shake it and I can't ignore it. I just have to go with it, rotating the projects to make sure each has its turn to be a higher priority than the others. When Camp NaNo is over and I no longer have a specific word target to meet, my focus will return to editing the novel with a view to getting this round finished. I'll have been working on it for three years in November and it would be wonderful to finally have a finished product.

My hope was that this children's book could go towards the NaNo word count. Maybe it still can. Maybe I'll have a sudden burst of inspiration. After a breather and a drink, I'll just keep hammering out sentence after sentence, hoping to eventually strike gold. Sometimes that's all we can do. Try and try until we get it right.

V.