Struggling

Well, day 3 of NaNoWriMo, and I'm struggling. I'm up to 3,923 words, but it's been hard going so far.

When I did this in 2004, I had a good idea of my storyline and once I got started I always seemed to know where the story would go next. Not that the writing was necessarily good, but I was able to write it. Maybe it's because that was a more general, women's fiction, type story and this time I'm trying a mystery, but it's not flowing right now. I realized in brainstorming before this month that a mystery definitely takes more planning and thought, but I didn't want to plan too much out and lose momentum when it actually came time to write. As a result, I'm now acutely aware that there are a lot of things I haven't thought out at all.

I didn't even write last night because I just couldn't figure out where to go next. Today, I decided that I just needed to write, so I've been writing whatever scene pops into my head. I have an idea of some of the events that need to happen, but I'm lacking in how to get from event to event. There's some logic in what I've written so far, but definitely a lot of gaps that will have to be filled at some point.

I'm hoping that by just getting the things I have thought about out, it will bring some clarity to the rest of the story & I'll figure out where I'm going. If nothing else, I may write 50,000 words of disjointed ideas that I can eventually cull something useful from to start again from scratch.

I'm frustrated, but I'm not giving up….I'm writing.