Hitting the Wall

Over the past couple months, I've done very little work on my old NaNoWriMo project. I've been more than a little disappointed with myself - my goal, after all, was to have a complete and voluptuous second draft by November. That way, I could shelve my current project and start another one, knowing full well that I'm invested enough in the novel to return to it.

The trouble, though, is that the last couple of months I have absolutely DREADED sitting down to work on the book recently. This isn't the same "dreaded" that leads me to play Free Cell over doing my writing - it's the kind of "dreaded" where I just don't WANT to continue the project as it's begun.

And that, I think, is the solution to the problem - starting over.

I don't plan on scrapping EVERYTHING I've written - in fact, I think some of the stuff I've done for the second draft thus far qualifies as the best writing I've ever put on paper since I signed the credit card receipt on my complete Calvin and Hobbes collection. However, I've noticed a small, but incredibly significant problem, with the plot setup that needs to be addressed before I can continue.

There's a bit of fantasy at work in my novel that I've been trying to slip in covertly in the opening chapters (think less Lord of the Rings and more Inception). I don't feel like I can progress with the actual PLOT of the story without getting that particular tidbit of information across clearly... but I've been doing everything EXCEPT clearly stating what the crap's going on.

It's another incident of "Braddy's trying to be too clever."

Starting over (again) is going to create a lot more work for me; however, the thought of making a fresh, more coherent start actually puts a big-ol' smile on my face, so I think I'll go for it.