Need More Discipline...

Blah. Last week started out slow, remember? At the start of the day on Wednesday I was at 300 words total for the week. I ended strong, writing 1100-1300 words per day for the next 3 days. Unfortunately, that was almost all on the SciFi novel, not Quint's novel!!! Bad Amelie! I forced myself to get at least a few hundred words written for him each day, but that was about as much enthusiasm for it as I could muster. I just have no idea where I'm going with that one. :(

So yesterday I made myself sit down and concentrate on what each of the main characters needed to accomplish over the course of the book - where they were going emotionally, developmentally and physically. That helped some, and at least now I have some scenes that will come later in the book figured out. Now I just need to fill in the spaces on getting there and come up with a big ending because I'm not happy with my original thoughts on that. It needs to be changed. If I get stuck again (i.e. when Quint starts getting cranky and won't work with me again), I at least have the later scenes of the book that I can write and at least feel that I'm moving the work as a whole forward.

I think I figured out Quint's general problem and why he's being so stubborn about this book. He's been around for almost 2000 years now and let's face it, he's turned into a crotchety old man (just not physically). If he had a cane, I'm sure he'd be sitting on his porch shaking it at every kid that walks by, telling them to "keep off my yard, you young whipper-snappers!" He doesn't like change. He keeps up with technology, but he resents it every step of the way. And frankly, he doesn't feel like things need to change. He'd not exactly happy with things as they are, but he's been beaten down by fate so many times that he's afraid to rock the boat on this one for fear that things will go worse. So he doesn't want to confront the stuff he needs to, because he's worried about the fallout. He's doing a serious ostrich impersonation right now. Apparently what he needs is a kick in the pants (I know this because he told you guys to give me one and this feels oh-so-similar), so I think I'll work on that today - figuring out what needs to happen to make him see that change is necessary.