The past two weeks have been
tortuous. I haven’t written a damn word. Instead, I have sat in front of my
computer, letting the cursor blink on the screen, and staring until the pixels
started to dance. In lieu of writing, I have also watched television, read “junk”
books, cooked extravagant meals, played with the cats, visited family, and
napped…a lot.
Normally, when I get into one of
these ruts, writing just a sentence can help kick me out of it. Even if that
sentence is junk. Or sometimes, just thinking deeply about the next scene, or
taking long walks, or meditating can help. But these past few weeks, none of
these old tricks have worked.
In fact, I've been so caught up on
my own life, and my own feelings, that I can’t seem to focus on my characters.
Recently, something rather odd happened to me—the details of which I won’t get
into. In the moment of that thing happening, I wasn't exactly sure what to do,
how to act, what things I should say, or even if I liked what was happening. Even
now, I don’t know my feelings on the whole thing. I have played and replayed
this event over in my head, trying to determine what I wanted out of the
situation, and how I should have responded to the stimuli around me.
I tried to write about it in essay
form, but I kept stopping, rewriting, erasing. What I was putting down wasn't helping me to understand the situation, and thus, wasn't helping me to move
past it and refocus on my novel.
Today, I got an idea. What if my
protagonist had been in my situation? What would he have done, said, felt?
Would he have acted braver, weaker, or bolder, than I had? I took to my
computer and threw him in. And boy, did he know what he wanted to do.
I still don’t know what I should
have done. But I know what my protagonist things about the whole thing, and
that’s good enough for me.
