I tried to write today. I really did. I carried my notebooks with me everywhere I went in the house and on the patio. I read over things I'd written so far. But I just couldn't add any real new text. It doesn't make any sense. When I work on expanding the Jade Slipper Suite, it should be easy. I already have a complete story from the first three-page piece of flash fiction I wrote in May. How is this not flowing at all? I've stalled out about fourteen hand-written pages in. I'm barely to the second movement of the suite (although I'm not relying on the musical gimmick as much in the expanded version), and I'm just stuck. This happens to me all the stinking time. I can have all the scenes lined up in my head, a complete story with a logical conclusion, and I just can't get past that first hill. I have more story beginnings than I can count, written longhand in spiral notebooks or lost forever on dead computers. I have at least two on my big laptop (the only one with Office on it). But I haven't ever finished a single manuscript in my life. It's hard to feel productive when I have this problem with follow-through.
I'm even more stuck with the latest story I started, that feels like it should be important, but right now is all character development and no plot. My daughter helped me think up a little conflict last night. It still feels like a side plot and not the main event. This is the same daughter who challenged me to write 500 words a night, and here I am struggling to add in ten or twelve to what I've already done. I'm letting her down. It's not on purpose. I'm always thinking about these stories. I'm not trying to be lazy. There has got to be a way to make it go from my head to my fingers.
Now here I am at the end of the day, with no new scenes written. We're just hanging out on the patio, gossiping and snacking, and enjoying the coolness. I brought my notebooks back out here too. They are sitting on the other side of my plate of nachos, untouched. I feel so lazy. Maybe I am.
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