I don’t know what’s wrong me. I just broke 60,000 words in my WIP. Yet I thought I’d be further along by now. It’s about a year and a half into the story line and although a ton of things have happened, it feels like only now has the protagonist been able to cross the threshold and begin exploring outer space. Part of me fears that because Travis has been stuck in juvenile prison and then house arrest for so long it drags the plot down. Maybe I could go back and edit down some of the subplots or start the story later?
No because if I did that then I’d never get the first draft done. I always want to go back and rewrite this bit, then that part. If I don’t reign it I’ll spends hours agonizing over a sentence.
Shitty first drafty aside, the thing I also fear is I haven’t incorporated Phoenix enough and given him enough of a role to justify having him. The thing is their journeys while separate are intertwined and can’t be completed with them helping each other.
While I’m getting work done everyday, sometimes I feel like I’m getting nowhere because even though I want to go full tilt with the action new problems spring up to hold them back. I guess this is good. If things were too easy it’d be boring right? But I don’t know. Maybe I need to take a break and reevaluate the story?
There are so many things I want to say with this story but it seems like I’m getting bogged down with the mundane happenings on Earth. There are other plot lines to explore. Like the secret society Travis’s grandfather was involved with during college.
Then there’s the government agencies tracking down kids with superhuman abilities to experiment on them and create super soldiers. And there’s the yet unexplored subplot where Phoenix goes out and fight crime ala Superman on Earth and Travis has to clean up the messes he causes.
Perhaps the main issue is I’m trying to do too much in a short time and should accept that I’ll probably need to break off the story into a trilogy or more books to tell the whole story. I don’t know yet. But the thing I fear the most is that I’m not good even to pull this off. I put so much pressure on myself sometimes I just want to take a few days off to recharge.
Don’t get me wrong. I love writing it., but lately I’ve been putting in one to two thousand words a day and am starting to feel burnt out. I’ve been neglecting my short stories and my other WIP. While the first draft is done it needs editing and rewriting in places.
Maybe I just need to break up the monotony of my routine. For the past two months it’s up at 6 or 7 exercise until 8/o’clock then blogging/journaling from 9-1, reading the news from 1-2 then working on my WIP from 4-8pm. Perhaps I should set a side one day a week just to have fun? I’ll try it and see how it goes.