Back to the Lighthouse

I've been struggling with getting words out of my head lately. I'm not sure why. It's frustrating and depressing to feel like my voice is gone. I don't think it's a permanent thing, but it's definitely been affecting my ability to finish Wings of Destiny - an unfortunate fact that is causing everyone I know to constantly ask me that horrible question: "How's your novel coming?"

Okay, okay. I know I told everyone that I would be done with this book by now. I know I promised myself to buckle down and finish. But here's the thing: I am buckled down. I am trying to finish. I am stuck in Luke Skywalker's head apparently. Too much trying, not enough doing. But how is a writer sans her voice supposed to finish her damn book? If my muse was tangible, I'd throttle him. For realsies.

I guess most people would say I have writer's block. I'm not sure that's true. I can brainstorm easily enough. In fact, in the past two weeks, I've come up with grand and wonderful ideas, plots, and characters for at least three of my other books. I even had a small breakthrough with an issue I've been having with the plot of Wings. However, none of that plotting and world-building did a lick of good for my actual writing. I just came back from spending the weekend (mostly) with my best writing friends, usually an inspiring atmosphere for getting words down, and I got approximately five sentences of real writing done the entire time. On the other hand, I also reread an entire manuscript of mine, gave it an entirely new plot, fixed a conflict with another manuscript, and wrote a new and improved antagonist into another. Not to mention, I brainstormed a new story with said best writing friends.

Sigh.

Bigger sigh.

Sigh with a (headdesk) thrown in for good measure.

This is the time when I try going back to my lighthouse. If you're new to this whole thing, or just don't remember all of my crazy-weird methods of keeping sane (or is it insane?), my lighthouse is where all of my characters from all of my stories go when a) I am not using them or b) they are hiding from me. I wrote a post describing it awhile ago: http://mysticalminx.blogspot.com/2011/05/subconscious-theater.html So on my laptop I have a document called "Subconscious Theater" that I write in as a therapeutic way to figure out what's going on with all of these clamoring voices inside my head - and perhaps why they're not coming through clearly.


P.S. I'm also big into running as a new way to clear my mind of reality and immerse myself in my own worlds.
I'm going to go try that now.

P.P.S. It sort of worked? I feel like blogging more at least. -_-