I hesitate to write this blog because I am a superstitious being and at this moment things are going really well. I wake in the morning with a smile on my face, ready and eager to sit down at the computer and dive back into my W.I.P. (that is, work in progress.) I hesitate because this is my second attempt at the sequel to “The Curious Misadventures of Feltus Ovalton.” The first was exceedingly difficult to write. I had a very hard time maintaining the flow, plotting, delving into my characters especially the new ones, and yes, I had just given birth to my daughter but she, at 14 months, is even more demanding now and things are still going well. It feels good this time. And I am exulting in my selfishness of spending a lot of my time in front of the computer and doing what I love, and writing down everything I think is funny or cool. Not thinking so much about other people at this point.
I blogged quite extensively about the first attempt. Parts of it worked, most of it didn’t, there just wasn’t enough of an idea to hang a story on, and so I had to do what all writers have to do at one point or another. I shelved it. Sections may pop up in future writings. I don’t know. I tend to look back on my writing and see only the weaknesses and the bad writing. I do think that the title (Feltus Ovalton and the Awful Becoming) may turn out to be a fantastic title for the third book but we shall just have to see. I have some small ideas of where I see things going in the future, but flexibility is important because things change so quickly.
Anyway, I am feeling confident enough to say that my WIP is titled “Feltus Ovalton and the Lost Warrior” and that it is going well. I am excited, the Muse whispers in my ear, I wake up in the middle of the night and scrawl notes down, ditto on my morning walk when Lucy, who is slung around my neck, tries to grab the pen from my fingers, I think about my characters all the time and they tell me what they want to say, and it’s FUN! The most FUN in the world.
Check back in a few days and see if I have encountered a sticky part and fallen back into the morass of despair but right now things are going swimmingly with the flow.
When I’m in the morass btw, there is nothing for it but to clamber out and keep going. And sometimes just taking a breather and then going back over some writing that feels wrong, with a clearer eye makes all the difference too.
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