Amidst the Fog

As authors we've all fallen in love with one of our projects and treated like it was our baby. We take months to write it maybe even years, because it needs to be perfect. Then after a while we get bored with it and never finish. Rather your a new writer or old we've all done it. I'm not afraid to admit it I have. Maybe it wasn't boredom that caused you to set it aside or personal reasons. My favorite blaming spot is my job. Yes, I would love to write all day and never leave my computer, but until that day happens I have to work.

Several years ago I fell hard for a story between two potential characters. I took a month just to write the prologue. Absolutely no reason for doing that. Then after three years I put it away, because not only was it all over the place, so was I. In three years a human being goes through a lot of emotions and changes, I was taking me characters along for the ride. After only eleven chapters they were going nowhere and not very fast.

So I finished a project recently and was beginning to think about what I wanted to work on next when I stumbled across the above picture. It was one that I had posted above my workstation while writing my incomplete novel Amidst the Fog. It made me think about my life for a minute and all the situations that had occurred. Sometimes as a writer I get distracted and I let everything else going on fog it up. I was guilty of walking away from writing for so many years, because I was jaded about my situation. Then if I did try to write all anyone would have seen was the jade. They'd see my fog and as beautiful as it might be that's all they'd see; nothing underneath.

This year I got tired of it...my own crap. The only thing keeping from doing what I loved was myself. Now I do a little of it everyday regardless of what's going on. Quite frankly I feel incomplete without it. Maybe in a day I write one paragraph or I write fifty pages at least I did it.

I pushed my own fog out, but brought back in my incomplete project. I looked at what worked and what didn't. These characters had a great story going it just needed to be finessed. So I've started over with it. I'm already at 200 pages, because I'm focused on them and so are they.

So when you find yourself amidst the fog take a step back and see what's causing your vision to be clouded and than get rid of it. In the end it will be worth it.