21JAN18 This Fucking Story!

Still hitting the wall with this piece. Cornelius is adrift. Everybody knows what they're doing but him which is giving the story no direction at all. Si-fi/ fantasy is a genre I grew up with and love. I have dabbled in it  a few times with stories i think are okay, which is why i'm finding it confusing as to why it's so difficult writing this one. I know what i want,. I see it, I even know how it ends. I just cant seem to make my fingers write the damn thing.

I have stared at these fifty pages for a week or so and have come to the conclusion that I'm trying to stretch a short story into a novel. I have an overarching plan for the characters but it has to be told in pieces. Stretching it into a novel feels like filler, with great swaths of dull, boring, passages that nobody, especially me, wants to read. it has to be leaner with more depth, not just prettily painted pictures of ships in space.

Cornelius also needs a real purpose. He is as adrift in his life as he is in space at this point.This drifting along could, but isn't, making for an interesting character. He's got to want something!

Thinking on the re-write i have a new mantra. I am forever talking with  my friend Jason, about the clock, how time is running, always. I approach all projects now like they are legacy pieces. I ask myself is this what you want to leave behind, What you want people to read that represents you.

On to the next re-write, head down, determined.

06JAN18 progess, though slow.

This story is still more of a struggle to write than my others. I have outlined, so have a general idea of where things are going, but an outline is just that. Cornelius, my main character, keeps wanting to leave his New-African roots for some wavy unsubstantial amalgamation of a human. I am letting him do it because he know himself better than i do. But his drifting is causing the problems with the story line. I have come to the conclusion I'm over thinking things, trying to force him into a preconceived structure that is not working. It's a tendency i have in other areas of my life and if not watched, leaks into my writing process. I am worrying over every line and how it works with the overall outline when it is just an outline. I should be just writing. Things generally fall into place with the re-writes.

Another issue is I am more comfortable with the short story form. That familiarity makes me write tighter when a novel needs breathing space. it was originally going to be a series of shorts of Cornelius's adventures and i guess it still is. i am telling myself just need to take my time and quit beating myself up over every line when the thing isn't even half finished. Forty pages in now, but they're forty good pages, ideas the can be shifted with most of the a dialog and story line still workable. Patience, i say shaking my head, patience.