Short Story Stasis

Ladies and gentlemen, I have a problem. I speak a lot about making sure you plot things out and have good details for your stuff ahead of time. Heck, I have 47 pages of notes just for The Paladin, most of which is obsolete and useless. And yet, every time I sit down to write on my latest short story (which is coming along nicely at 33 pages and about 10,000 words) I forget what the heck I was doing.

I know I'm getting older and I have a lot of stuff on my plate from editing and uploading a podcast/YouTube video to working out the next plot for my Tabletop RPG group, but still. I haven't properly written out all the details for this short story and I'm paying for it. Especially since this story is rather intricate. It's... well... I'll save the genre reveal for a later update, but it's one I've never played with in so much depth. I'm loving it and having so much fun, but every time I sit down to write I think "Wait... was she supposed to do that? Wouldn't the be an issue with this other thing? Did I already consider that?"

It's a vicious cycle. I start to write, forget what I had planned, take a break and then... it's days later and I'm feeling guilty for not writing. And yet I can't bring my lazy ass to write out everything I need. And what's worse, I actually started with some decent notes. Had all the characters written out with names and descriptions. Picked the important people, mapped out a couple of events... and then stopped. I'm well past my outline in actual writing. Hell, I've had to create totally new characters I hadn't anticipated just to fill what's happening. Discovery writing, I think the pros call it.

I call it being irresponsible with my writing. At least while I'm doing it, anyway. But fear not. I won't let this story get the best of me. I've already defeated two other short stories, one of which had Theodore Freakin' Roosevelt killing werewolves in it! I'll get this knocked out eventually. 

I wonder if the hard part is that this has absolutely no ties to The Paladin? With Val's Blog and Wolves and Wild Roses there were threads that connected to my established world. This one is completely outside my wheelhouse and, if you want to get technical, is playing in someone else's sandbox. But I took on this project, so I will complete it. I can't let another story defeat me.

​DFTBA my friends.