Writing of late has not been easy. I’m struggling to get the words down and when I do I’m not happy with them. For a while now I’ve felt that I have lost something, something that was allowing me to put a story together seems to have been lost and I don’t know how I can get it back. I don’t know if it’s where I’m writing stories which are more complicated then I’m able to write or if it’s a case that my head isn’t in the right place to concentrate enough to put the words together in the right order and have a good story there once I’ve written the final word.

Maybe its even how I’m sitting and the environment around me. On Sunday  (30-3-12) I was sitting at my desk all day and the words just would not come, and when they did they were really badly put together (probably much like how this blog post is). The last two nights (around a family meal out and a cinema trip) I’ve been writing with the laptop on my lap as I sit on my bed and the words have flowed a little easier.

I don’t know if its a lack of preparation that isn’t helping. When Chrystalyn and I are brainstorming for The Residents we’re going into a new level of detail that I have not even come close to thinking of till now. This is something that I need to transfer over to when Owen and I are working because knowing the details will help make putting the story together a whole lot easier I think.

With short stories I think I can get away with just writing and not having much of a plan but with anything over the 15k mark I think I need to learn how to plan it out and do all the research I may need to fill in the details that may come up in the story before I start writing.

I’m hoping that all of this will help in getting to a point where I can put a story together. I don’t know why over the last year or so I’ve been unable to get a story completed properly, it has felt like something in my head has broken or a skill been lost somewhere and I need to rediscover it. I’ll have time to try and find it though, Tracie and I ended our relationship last month, so I’m going to properly throw myself into my writing over the next few months. I’ve got Project Apollo with Owen and The Residents with Chrystalyn as my main focus points at the moment and maybe ten short stories that just need tidying up. I’d like to get back on Earth, After Liberation by the end of the year as well, but I’m not going to try and load myself up to much. I’m going to take each story as I go.

It feels like its been a long time since I’ve had the focus that I need to have for this. No more letting Facebook or Twitter distract me, it’s time to find my focus again.