Alice Advice

"I give myself very good advice. But I very seldom follow it."

Alice and I have a lot in common.

Only two blog posts ago, I said that stories are not manufactured but, rather, discovered. I had an hour-long phone conversation with my writing cohort (which mainly consisted of me whining to her about how nothing made sense in my novel anymore).

She then told me to go re-read my own blog post, which said, "Whenever I'm struggling to make a plot line work, it's likely because I'm trying to force the story to go in a direction that it actually doesn't (or shouldn't) go."

Needless to say, I felt a little hypocritical.

Yet, after I got off the phone and for this past week, I've continued struggling to make a square fit into a circle. I laid awake in bed for, what felt like, an eternity. I went through every possible idea to fix my villian problem. With no results. Except a very sore brain.

The next day, I decided to take a break from the trials of my book. I'm just sitting there - contendly immersed in the world of Francine Rivers' A Voice in the Wind - when, out of nowhere, a lighning bolt of inspiration suddenly struck me. And I realized my one-line of dialogue had been there all along, simply waiting to be discovered. Oh, frabjous day!

All that to say, follow your own advice...if it's "very good advice". 


Novel update: Getting there... 131 days remaining!