As I write book 2, I’ve found this interesting pattern emerges. Like a roller coaster, with ups and downs, I’ll be have a few days of just furious progress where I’m getting a lot of words down and I like the way things are going. Then I’ll hit a slump where everything seems to come to a stand still. Usually these slumps come from a problem with my story’s internal logic–something like, “character X needs to be in location Y during conflict X… but they need a good reason to be there.”

I’d like to say there’s an easy to to solve those problems, but if there is I sure haven’t found them yet. A major problem is that there’s no real way to give good advice on solving these kinds of issues, because they’re often quite unique to each individual story. There are two approaches that I’ve found are helpful though.

The first is to try to look at the situation your character is in from a different angle. That seems like obvious advice I know, but it’s something that I’m always forgetting. I’ll get too focused on what my character’s primary motivation is that I’ll completely overlook secondary objectives, or ways to influence the primary motivation to help my characters make decisions that put them where they need to be. This is something you have to be careful with though, because you want your characters to drive your story. Naturally, you know what you want your character to do, but the reader needs to perceive that your characters are being put into situations because of their choices and not because it progresses the plot. That’s a common problem, even among published works.

The second approach is to check for answers in what you’ve already written. At least five or six times over the course of the past two books I’ve written I’ve hit a bottleneck, didn’t know how to proceed, then realized that I had introduced concepts earlier in the book that gave me the answer to the problem. A magic system, or information characters have been given previously that can inform the story later. Sometimes only a tweak or two is all you need to provide good setup for a difficult pay off.

In any case, this is my last week at my weekend job at the hotel. It’s a shame in a way because I’ve got a good system down for writing and I’ve made good progress on book 2. I’ve got a new job that is likely going to cut into my productivity a bit, at least at first, but I think I’ve got some good ideas for making sure I get a good bit done every day still. I’d like to shoot for having my rough draft of book 2 done by Christmas. Maybe I’ll shoot to have it done during Nanowrimo–which I’ve never participated in and I’m not even sure I spelled correctly. That’s a good goal!