Characters have a way of grabbing hold of us, don’t they?
In May, I finished the first draft of my WIP, Brotherly Love, after taking a FastDraft workshop with Candace Havens. And “first draft” is definitely the appropriate term for it: There’s extraneous scenes, missing scenes, some less-than-stellar writing, and at least three attempts at an ending.
In short, it needs a lot of work. But since then, I feel like I’ve been spinning my wheels. I haven’t done much revising yet, mostly just brainstorming. This path or that path? Why does this character have zero flaws? Should that character be a doctor or a minister?
Ahhhh, the questions are never-ending.
NaNo is Coming …
I’m super excited about doing NaNo this year.
Actually, no.
I’m super excited about the idea of doing NaNo this year.
I’m not really sure what I’ll write for NaNo. But I’ve got all of October to figure that out, right?
Before NaNo Comes FastDraft
Yup, I was just insane enough to sign up for another FastDraft workshop right before NaNo. It starts tomorrow and last week was supposed to be dedicated to preparing for that.
I struggled all week to figure what what I’ll write over the next two weeks. I struggled to develop new characters and relationships and conflicts.
Why has this been so hard? Usually developing characters is what I’m good at and they come fairly easily to me. But not this time.
The Voices Characters in My Head
A big part of the problem is that I can’t get the two main characters of Brotherly Love out of my head. I’m always thinking about how I can tweak the plot to raise the stakes, put them into conflict, and tell the story I want to tell.
We’ve all felt this way at one point, right?
They’re my friends. I love them. To start another project feels like abandoning them.
Does that sound crazy? Other writers can probably understand these feelings, but writers are pretty weird to begin with, huh?
Judging by the number of memes about fictional characters and the way we hold on to them makes me think that readers get it, too.
Either that, or they’re just as crazy as us writers. 
Not Abandonment, Just a Break
I have to keep telling myself that I’m not abandoning my boys. I’m not giving up on them. But I do worry that by the end of November, I’ll be so focused on the new manuscripts that Brotherly Love will fall to the wayside.
I even worry I’ll forget about my boys.
Then I remember a story I started writing back in 2009 but never finished. I still think about that story. Not every day anymore, but often enough. I even still dream about those characters sometimes. The only reason I haven’t gone back to work on that story is that it’s fan fiction and my focus right now is on writing stories that I can publish.
So no, I won’t forget about my Brotherly Love boys in just a couple months. And yet I worry so much about it, I’m having trouble moving on even though I know I need to take a break.
I just have to keep telling myself that it’s okay. Everything will be alright.
Right?
