If it isn't broken...mess with it anyway and see what happens!

Good afternoon!

This is actually take two of my attempt to blog today. The wind is howling outside, but it's sticky and humid...and a cold front is promised. So it's pretty much a typical bizarre weather day here in the Cheesehead state. The cold front will be just in time for Girl child to unveil her...sleeveless Halloween costume. Yep, she forgot the first rule of trick or treating in Wisconsin: Have a costume you can wear a coat under.

So I was at my favorite retail website www.cafepress.com earlier this week when I found a T-shirt that read, "No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader."

Truer words were never said...and boy did I need to hear those words this week!

I'm stalled, friends, stalled big time. Stalled so bad that I can't even think about Na No this month mostly because we all know I'm not going to write 50,000 words in a month, let's be honest, but also because I'm STALLLLLLLLLLLLLLEDDDDDDDDDDD!

My work in progress, a dark, dark, dark DARK contemporary romance (did I mention it was DARK?) is moving along nicely...until this past week. All this time to write and no actual words coming out. It's not a matter of creativity. It's not a matter of knowing where the story is going, it's a matter of I just don't like the chapter I'm stuck on. It's not fun, it's not funny, it's not sexy....but it must be there. I can't just jump over it. Things will not make sense.

It's not that there's anything wrong with it. I just don't like it. It's sort of dull. It seemed really fun when I wrote it a few weeks ago, but now that I've inserted it into the flow of the story, it just seems....flat.

So...."no tears in the writer, no tears in the reader."

If the chapter doesn't evoke anything from me, there's no point in keeping it.

Today's fiction world is so competitive, so glutted with authors and books and voices and titles that you simply cannot have two pages of so-so writing. Herman Melville would have been shot for about fifty of his chapters in "Moby Dick..." (You know, the chapters that had NOTHING TO DO WITH THE PLOTLINE? Anyone who thinks that mess of disorganized rambling by the most boring human mind on the planet is a Great American Novel has not read the book. I promise you that!) Everything must flow and flow quickly from page to page to page. Every page must have a hook...you writers know what I mean.

Having gone through this past year of editing with Aly over at Wild Rose Press, I've learned a lot about writing and editing.

So, whilst there's nothing really wrong with that chapter, it's going into the deleted file...and maybe I'll just skip everything and get right to the dead body...or the sex.

After all, I'm not writing a book about whaling...THANK HEAVENS!

Have a great Halloween weekend all!