Old Project: Untitled Fantasy/Murder Mystery Novel
New Project: “All the Dead Girls”
New Pitch: The Last Final Girl meets Scream meets, uh, the last season of Lost?
Number of POV Characters In One Damn Story: Five
Number of Horror Tropes Being Played With: Too Many To Count
Song From Current Project Playlist: “Youth of America” – Birdbrain
Goal Met: . . . well, not exactly.
Okay, so here’s what’s going on: I’ve been fighting tooth and nail with this novel since I started it, and it’s gotten to the point where I’m not only starting to lose interest in a project I believe in, but just saying to myself, “Okay, it’s time to write now,” is depressing the crap out of me. And guys, it’s way too early in the process for this level of anxiety. I thought using the Write-a-Thon as a way to push myself into working on a novel-length project again was a good idea, and maybe it was at the time, but I just don’t think I’m there yet with this one. There’s fighting through the rough spots, working to get past the moments and scenes that just aren’t playing right, and then there’s stressing yourself the hell out for no good reason, and I feel like that’s what I’m doing here.
This is a novel I really want to write, but . . . I just don’t think I’m ready to work on it right now. And ever since I decided to press pause, I’ve felt a lot better.
But I don’t want to abandon the WaT entirely — after all, the general life goal is to always be writing something — so I’ve decided to go back to a short story I was working on last year, something I got about 2/3 of the way through before I was forced to put it on hold. (Life, you know how it goes.) I was pretty into this story at the time, though, and I’m excited to get back to it now. The new goal is to finish the first draft by the end of next week. It might not happen, but I’m going to try cause, damn it, I desperately want something in Nightmare. (Which, okay. This might not qualify because it’s one of those stories that’s about horror but isn’t exactly scary itself? To hell with it. We all have dreams.)
So I bid you adieu, fairy tales, at least temporarily. Time to switch gears to feminist meta horror. (God, that’s like 2/3 of my brain right there. Add in superheroes, and you’ve basically covered everything I ever think about.)
Finally, a random line from the current project:
Megan has always been wary, even by dead girl standards.
My Geek Blasphemy 
I’m sorry you’ve been having trouble with the novel, and it’s good that you’re feeling better now that you’re working on something else. The new story sounds pretty interesting. 🙂
That’s okay. I think part of the problem is I just finished up one long-term project, and it probably wasn’t my best idea to jump into an even longer one right away. I think it’ll be good for me to flit around a bit and try to finish up a few different shorter things before getting into something as long as novel. I just felt bad/vaguely embarrassed because I’d been publicly writing about it. Quitting (or at least postponing) after only four weeks seemed a little sad. Still, it seemed like the right call.
And thanks! Hopefully, it’ll work out. I’m enjoying writing it, anyway.