Daily Musings

Writing when you don't know what's next

For the past couple of days I've been hesitant on what could I put together for my story that I'm working on. I do know which way I want the story to go but I know this story will not be anywhere near finished even when I write the end. The thing is my adult children were telling me over and over to write a kind sketch of what my story was about, create firm character details, to write down a timeline of events etc

But I am not that type of writer. The story is literally behind my eyes in my mind, I have a recording in my brain narrating this as I write. I don't do well with rigid structure. I think I do better with letting all of it flow and then go back when it's all done and tweak and change the things I feel like don't merge together.

How do other writers deal with writer's block? For me is not that I don't want to write. It's that I don't have the peace and time to do so. With 2 jobs and a family to feed, it takes me so long to come back to the keyboard. Once I do make it back, it feels like I lost the momentum to carry out the my characters to the next level.

This story I'm writing is a murder mystery so building and maintaining that level of anticipation, adrenaline and still be believable is key. So one thing my youngest child writer does, is research. She researches cities, civilization, history, architecture, music, pop culture and anything that can make her story as accurate as possible because she is in the Fantasy Futuristic Dystopia genre. She is writing about an almost possible future that has heavy influences in the past but she's Gen Z so she doesn't know the 70's, 80's 90's etc.

I write of a period of time that I actually lived so I remember how the wind feels of the coast of New England, the smell of salt and brine, the way a jetty feels crossing over to the mainland. I know small town charm and the smell of fresh brewed coffee and baked bread in the morning. It all comes down to what genre we write in, do we pull historical fiction or futuristic fiction.