The day I moved into my apartment
happened to be during a particularly rainy spring season. Unless you
live somewhere that rain does something different than it does where
I live, we all know what happens to the ground when it rains for
several weeks.
I was staying at my mother's house
until my apartment was ready, and sure enough, moving day greeted us
with a steady drizzle. My mother has a long driveway, curvy and
hilly, and mostly gravel. Or what is normally gravel, anyways. Moving
Day arrived and the rain had turned the gravel into a mushy layer
easily lost in about 4 feet of mud. My friends arrived with their
van, and managed to get the van up the driveway to the door, no
problem. We were golden. Ignoring the drizzle the best we could, we
hauled all of my stuff into the van, loaded it to the brim in under 4
hours, and got ready to get underway.
My friend started the van, put it into
drive, pressed down the accelorator, and....we lurched forward, then
stopped.
Yes. As much as we all should have seen
the inevitable happening at some point, given the situation, we
somehow thought we could escape the Big Stuck. We didn't. I don't
know how much a 14 passenger van filled with the belongings of a
single gal, actual single gal, and 3 strapping lads weighs...but it
was too much for the driveway to handle.
I won't bore you with the gory details,
but we did manage to eventually get the van unstuck. It was filthy.
It was maddening. There was an awful lot of swearing, tire kicking,
and yelling...and I was barely even helping the poor lads! But, yes,
the van got unstuck and my life was moved into my new apartment. We
all lived happily ever after.
Except, now I'm writing a book, and
I've encountered another...Big Stuck. A Really, Really, Big Stuck.
I'm 54k into the first book of what has
always been, in my mind, a trilogy. Only...I'm stuck. I know what is
supposed to happen for much of Book 2 and Book 3. But I'm not sure I
can write 3 books with approximately 80k+ each. I'm not sure I have
that much Story. I refuse to be one of those writers who just goes on
and on and on with filler scenes to get a specific word count.
I've read those books. We've all read those books. Those are the
books that make you go, “Oh my God, just....DIE already, or
something! Sheesh!”
SO what do I do? Do I keep waiting for
new inspiration? I've gone a week without writing a single thing in
my WIP. I've been working on other things, but it's not helping. I
have deadlines. Granted, they are self-imposed, but very important
for a number of reasons. I've also always wanted to go the route of
traditional publishing, I mean, up until a short time ago, there
really wasn't other options anyways, but now there is. There are lots
of other options...and I keep getting these options presented to me
in a way that is starting to sound very tempting. For those of you
who may not know what I'm talking about, I'm talking about
self-publishing, hybrid publishers, epublishers, etc. The interesting
thing about all of these is the death of the stringent guidelines
concerning the all-mighty Word Count.
When I get an idea in my head, I tend
to grip it with pit bull tenacity and MAKE it happen. Can't be done,
you say? Watch me...This is both one of my finest and one of my worst
traits. Worst, in the sense that sometimes I really should let go.
Some ideas are meant to morph into new ones, not be clung to in a
maddeningly obtuse fashion. Am I harming my story because I so badly
want to see it take place in three books, laid out in shiny
hardcovers at my local Barnes and Noble? Maybe it's not supposed to
happen that way. How do I tell the difference between “Giving Up A
Dream” and “Achieving Something Equally As Good (If Not Better)”?
Is all this talk directed at me about my publishing options a sign or
just coincidence? Because right now, I'm really not sure...Maybe this
story is meant to only be a book and its sequel. Or maybe, it's meant
to be three novella length stories with an epublisher.
The fact of the matter is if I decide
to do this story in 2 parts, instead of 3, I could sit down at my
computer (which feels like it's overheating by the way....crap....)
and pound out about 5k right now, no problemo. And tomorrow, the
same thing. But instead....I'm Stuck...because I keep clinging to the
idea of writing a 80-100k'er...so do I stick to the original plan or come up with a new one? Am I wimping out by not sticking it out with a trilogy? What good is a "meh" trilogy if a sequel is "Woo Hoo!!" Quitter? Winner? Gahhhh...What would you do?
(Kind of what I'm doing right now!)
