Momentum

Today I wanted to talk about momentum (not the kind that keeps your car rolling down a hill when you leave the handbrake off). Do you somedays wonder how you still have fingerprints when you type so fast you can almost smell smoke? Other days you open your computer only to turn it off again because your brain feels like it's going to explode. Be it a hangover, a distraction or a block, what kills your momentum? Maybe it's not your momentum, perhaps it's the story? Did you take a wrong turn and get your characters lost in a world of misunderstandings and 'he said', 'she said'?

The last two weeks or so, I've been on a role. My historical WIP is now at 35,000 words and still going strong but what do I do with the one's that weren't so lucky? I have two contemporaries and another historical that all three died at some point or another and still don't have endings. The beginnings are great - if I do say so myself - but as I near the end,  I get blocked and write something stupid that just doesn't fit. I keep telling myself its because I don't want to see the end of the story. You get so wrapped up and fall in love with your own characters that it almost seems a shame to write 'The end'. I don't think I have a problem with a 'saggy middle', (no I'm not referring to the spare tyre). I love writing the dark moments and the epiphany moments so why do I seem to be having trouble with endings?

Maybe after I'm finished the one I'm working on I might spend some time backtracking through these unfinished HEA's and try to figure out where I went wrong... So what stops your momentum? For me it's the same old story. Kids, partner, housework, washing, work, the never-ending-story. Throw in the new kitten, Molly, who sadly has been isolated with ringworm - yes, yet more work. And then there's the internet. Stupid me stumbles across games like Facebook Scrabble and Bejewelled Blitz that I can't seem to say no to. They're like the sound of the pokies when someone wins and it makes me want to play more and more. I close my eyes and see combos of triangles, squares and little star thingies. When I play Scrabble, I justify it to myself that I'm extending and working out my vocabulary. Ha! What a whopper!!

Last week I decided to start writing at least a thousand words before turning the internet on but that pretty soon died too. I just can't stay away and if you're waiting for competition results you want to leave the internet plugged in and turned on all day just so you can keep checking your e-mails with bated breath. I also started reading Karen Hawkins, The Abduction of Julia, and I'm addicted to that as well. Now do I write, play or read?

Now that you've read my ramble for the week, close me down and go and write a few thousand words or if you aren't a writer, go and pick up the book you've been putting off reading, turn off the telly and get to it!

Stay dry and warm and enjoy the sunshine if you can see it. Have a nice weekend :)