A Little Every Day - Week 3
This week of the A Little Every Day project had its ups and downs. For the first time, I really began to feel the drag as the spark of inspiration fades and habit takes over. I struggled this week to make progress on my novel. As much as I have planned and worked on putting together the pieces for this novel, I have been struggling to get the words down onto paper this week. After making huge progress last week moving through chapter 9 with ease, I feel like I’ve hit a dead end. Moving through the less eventful areas of the novel is much harder and I knew it would be. I will keep on trying and working at it until I get through this part again.
After slowing down in the ninth chapter of the novel at the beginning of the week, I decided to take a day or two off from working on it. It seemed like a good idea at the time but now looking back I think it may have caused me to lose all of the momentum I still had. On the day off, I managed to edit and upload the final two Dungeons and Dragons recaps from the old blog onto the new page. From now on the recaps will be entirely new content and that is a big step forward for me. The next day I tried to return to the novel but couldn’t seem to focus on the section I was needing to write so I tried to get everything out of my head that was conflicting with the current section. In the end I put together basic storyboard overview of characters, possible plot points and significant events for this trilogy and also three prequels to that. It was both exciting to imagine these events and the lives of those within the Lonely World, but it was also a little intimidating. For no matter how much I think about these things, I will not get anywhere if I don’t have the ability to write them down.
The next day was when I was hit by the effects of the loss of the original inspiration which has fuelled my writing thus far. I ended up doing almost nothing that day. I used the fact that I was tired as an excuse to avoid working hard. Sure, I needed rest, but I probably could have put in more time and effort to trying that day. Though I only got a poultry amount written that day, I did formulate the idea which led to the creation of my foodie page yesterday. After getting almost nothing done I was determined the next day to make significant progress. I at least managed to finish Chapter 9 of the novel. Looking back at where I had left the chapter previously I had a better idea of how I should continue it and indeed finish it. I tried to follow some writing advice I had read online and didn’t stop at the end of the chapter, I began writing the next in the hope that it would spur me on to pick the writing back up. That it would help me continue writing as I had a beginning already in place. In a way it did help because I no longer had to consider how to write the start, but again, I made little progress with the story and only wrote a few paragraphs before giving up again.
The final day of this week led to the creation of my Food and Drink page of the website. I wrote up recipes for two of my latest bakes: first, Chocolate and Salted Caramel Cupcakes; second, my Mixed-Berries and Maple Upside-Down Cake. They’re both great recipes which I loved making and indeed eating and so I wanted to share them with other people. I am planning to continue building up this digital recipe book with baking and also with savoury recipes I love eating.
Thank you for joining me on this week’s part of the A little Every Day project. I am hoping that by continuing this I can overcome the novel writing slump I am in. Only time will tell! The important thing I am working to remember is that progress is still progress no matter how small and how to appreciate that at the time.