Distance and longing, my thoughts do collide. Should I rest for a while at the side?

I'm back to a weird place in my writing.  It's not writer's block, per se, but there's some definite obstacle in my way.  I have this story to tell, am in the process of reworking the beginning of the story, and I feel confident that the decision to expand it was the right one.  I think I'm having a hard time seeing the path.

When I write, a lot of my story is told through dialogue.  I have prose, certainly, but I find my characters in what they have to say.  It can take me a long time to write a couple of pages, because I spend so much time going back and forth in the characters' heads, in their spaces and their moments, to see what's driving them and where they're going.  I don't watch them from the outside.  I step into them as they talk and think and move, and I translate that onto the page. 

Right now, I'm having a hard time finding that entrance again. 

And it's weird.  It's like the characters are stuck in this moment, specifically standing around in a kitchen and on a deck, waiting for the next thing to happen.  They're waiting to move, and I can't seem to make it happen for them.  I'm not really sure why. 

I tend to think through a lot of the story beforehand, while I'm driving or in the shower or lying in bed in the throes of insomnia.  My brain will churn those characters over and over, manipulate them in their world, and see what comes out of it.  I started with a definitive storyline, character outlines, and a plan.  For the most part, that was abandoned pretty quickly as these characters took on a life of their own.  I've had days when I was writing with them when even I was surprised by what they had to say when they said it.  The Aha! moments came through my fingertips onto the screen and were startling. 

I kind of feel like I'm cheating them right now, not letting them finish their story.  Really, their story is finished.  The ending is done.  It's the beginning that's being redeveloped, expanded, becoming more detailed.  It's added a lot to them--one character in particular--but it's not finished.  And sometimes I see them all standing there, frozen in place, waiting for me to pull their strings and let them move again. 

I don't like having things unfinished, in general.  It's inefficient and frustrating to me.  Strangely I'm also a believer in the journey and not so much the destination.  Writing these stories is definitely a journey of the most expanding and exhausting kind.  I love it, really, but it's made me have to face some things about myself and deal with them in new and unexpected ways.  So when it's unfinished, when these characters are lingering, the journey is stalled. 

I feel a little like Robert Plant in the video for "Big Log", broken down outside the closed gas station.  I see things that remind me, that make me think about it and remember how the journey's gone so far, but I'm still broken down in a hot, dusty place.  Maybe I need to dive down into the cool depths of my dreams while I wait for a tow.

 

Comments

[Cheryl, Castro Valley, CA]

Maybe you should explore the scenery and not just the characters in that moment. Why are they frozen? Is there something in that particular moment you are not seeing? Expand your horizons to it, perhaps? Just the thoughts that came to my mind while reading this. Perhaps they will offer a jumping point or lead you to a new line of thought.

Cheryl