How to get back in gear (If only I knew!)

IMG_3871I’ve been rewriting and editing my three (rather long) novels which make up my trilogy: The Voyagers, for many months now. I actually thoroughly enjoy this process, as it’s usually easier to correct something than to create something, but it does spoil you for not having to worry about new characters and plots, and writing fresh scenes.

Yesterday, I looked at a brief outline of a possible novel I jotted down several months ago. It gave me about a third of a story and I have no idea of how the sub plot would work, nor any idea of the ending. And I truly don’t remember the working title I gave it. When did that happen? Do other writers look at their work and wonder how the words got there?

I haven’t looked at this outline for months but when I read it I thought maybe – it was just possible – that it had legs. But here I am today, having done a massive clear out of my office (it needs one more session for me to get really exuberant) and any burst of creative story-telling energy has left me sitting here thinking, ‘Am I excited enough by this story to spend a year or so on it?’

The answer is, ‘I think I could be if I just started writing the damn thing.’ Well, I do have a first sentence, but the style is more rom-com than mystery saga, which is what I always seem to be drawn to. Shall I risk a change of genre and see whether it might develop into a rom-com after all? Or change that first, rather good, sentence?

Answers, please, on a postcard!

2 thoughts on “How to get back in gear (If only I knew!)

  1. lizharriswriter

    Hi, Denise! Some people can work on more than one novel at a time – I can’t. I would need to feel that I’d done all I could do to complete the trilogy, then I’d start sending out the first of the three books, and move on to the new book.

    Only when I’ve let go of one book, can I get my head round – and enter – the world of another book

    Good luck!

    1. Denise Barnes Post author

      Sorry, Liz, I didn’t come back to you to thank you for your comment. I feel I’ve got 3 books in my head (the trilogy) and a new one is starting to float around. Oh, dear!

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