Ever feel that way? Like your mind has turned to mush, the plot line is stagnant, your characters hate you, and everything you read you just know you could write it better?
Yep, I feel that way too. The slump. Sometimes it hits me hard, and I can't even stand the sight of my computer. Sometimes it's just a little thing, like now. Just a feeling that what I'm writing or planning just isn't good enough. It's a rough feeling either way, but at least I've experienced it before.
One thing I learned the hard way: never try to edit your stuff, or destroy your stuff, while in the slump. I once trashed about 100 pages of a novel during a slump, and I still regret it. There was stuff in those pages that I can never retrieve, not from memory, not from hard drive. It's just gone.
Right now, I have been editing some on VA, but I've also got some beta readers working on it, so that helps. For example, I know I stink at commas, so I have the Comma Guru (as we like to call my friend) for part of it.
You learn your weaknesses. Correct them as you can. But realize everyone has them, and try to compensate for it. If I had a problem with adding, I wouldn't ask an English teacher for help; I'd ask a math teacher. If I have problem with a certain style or form of writing, then I ask someone who excels at that for help. Simple as that. :)
Anyway, I am hard at work at the sequel to VA, just in case. You never know how things will work out, and Chax needed some cameo time, as I said before. A good place to find pieces of VA, by the way, is writing.com (link in upper left) or www.writersdigest.com in the Critique Central under Community. :) I'd love to see y'all there. (Yeah, that's a little hint, but I think those are the two best writing sites around, and believe me, I've tried others.)
Enough with my shamless advertising. Signing off for now.
