Maria Lima's Blog, page 3

 

Our ridiculous cats. Frankie has decided that the wee table is *his*. So when Blue perches on the table, Frankie tries to assert his dominance. Blue, as you see, isn’t exactly concerned.

Boy, this crazy cat…he loooooooves paper. Cardboard, envelopes, anything that was received in the mail. I opened up this envelope and took out the contents, then put it on the floor, so I could remember to take it out to recycling.

Frankie decided it needed exploring.

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Oh, writer’s block. We hear a lot about it and how to avoid it/work through it, but what do you do when it’s blocking you?

I bet every single writer has a tip or trick on how to break through the block. And every single one of them are right…and wrong. What works for Person X may not work for Person Y, or you.

How do I do it?

I tend to go work on something else, or just noodle around with worldbuilding for the thing I am writing.

For example: In my project Caught (which is set in Corpus Christi), I’ve been trying to work out how I can maneuver my people in ways I need to without violating how Things Work in Real Life.

The situation: my MC is called in because of some missing fae. She will be working with the local police to help find the fae and stumbles across [REDACTED] in the course of the investigation.

The writing problem: I did not want to turn this into a police procedural, nor did I want to use actual police process in the investigation. How to make this work? It’s a contemporary/urban fantasy, so I can organize my world to work the way I want it to, but a huge requirement for me is to make it plausible. Whatever situation I create must work within the rules of the world I create.

So how to avoid a reader (or me!) saying that the investigation wouldn’t happen that way, or that I was ignoring basic police procedure?

Not so simple, huh?

First, I began by having my main police character be a relative newcomer to the area. She’s not from around here and she’s feeling her own way around. That was a start.

Then I realized, that even so, I needed either more police presence, more scenes in the local PD and how they handled officially missing persons. I needed to figure out how this all worked with my MC and her own situation…and I got waaaay too bogged down.

I had to put aside the project and work on something else. Something entirely different. So I did. I worked on a romance novella (which is neither a genre, nor a length I’ve ever tried) and made some progress.

Caught was put to the side. I didn’t work on it or do any research at all.

Then the other morning, I woke up at 4:46 a.m. – with a possible solution. I typed out notes on my phone (yay for Google docs!) and realized that this may well solve some of the issues I kept running across.

The notes are part of my Scrivener file now, and I’m more confident that I can pull this off.

To whet your appetite, here’s the first section of the book – which will probably change, because of above-mentioned Eureka! moment, but hey, consider this a sneak peek!

caught-section-1

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Come find out my thoughts over on my new patrons-only post at Patreon. Wherein I talk about writers’ block and share a sneak peek into a WIP.

You can become a patron for as little as $1/month!

We don’t really do much for the holidays anymore, but this is a blast from the past. Felos and Kat in our old house, loving the wrapping paper…as cats do. I can’t remember the year, but I think this was mid-90s?

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Only, no, I’m really, really not.

Because ideas are cheap, easy and beyond plentiful. I get ideas every single day – all day long. Some are interesting enough to jot down, others, just fleeting thoughts that may or may not crop up again.

For many writers, it’s the lack of time that bogs them down. They either work fulltime jobs, have families, are under contract or a mix of all three.

Me? I’ve got the time, the brainpower, the ganas*–but so very little actual physical ability/energy. Isn’t that irony?

I sit here pondering on topics to post for Patreon, on where to take my projects next (two of which I still consider active), and my body is “nope, nopety, nope. Can’t do.” Frankly, it sucks.

What I want most in the world right now is utterly impossible: to remove the physical constraints of my chronic illnesses and let me feel like I did when I was in my early 40s: full of life, full of energy and ability. Sadly, that’s just not going to happen.

What does this mean for you, my readers?

Well, everything’s just going to take a lot longer. I write when I have energy bursts, and rest when I can’t write. So, please be patient, and I hope you don’t lose interest.

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