In trying to relight the fire of the story, I also decided to "take my writing seriously" and do things like read Stephen King's On Writing and do an outline. Since I'm trying to write a mystery, my thought process was based on that King ethic that if I'm going to have something happen later, I sure as heck better set it up at the beginning of the story. I also did the whole "kill your darlings" thing to streamline certain relationships and iron out timeline issues I've struggled with through the whole story.
And let me just put this on the record: THIS IS THE MOST FRUSTRATING THING I'VE EVER DONE!
I want to burn the whole thing like love letters in a fire filled barrel on Valentine's Day. Since it takes place in a small community of New Jersey McMansions (thus far, last night I wondered what would happen if I moved it to Seattle), I want to burn all the houses down and collect the insurance money. The latter is what someone did to get his footing in real estate, but I guess you can witness that whenever this story gets out of my damn head. I even forgot I had that part set up in my head as something to use. Hence why I'm trying to outline.
Now that the embers of my frustration are cooling, I can say that I am in love with this story again, as I am with my other story. I unearthed a couple things that became my darlings and got rid of a lot of stuff I just had no interest in and didn't seem like it would payoff for the audience.
But now to set some deadlines.
And how's your writing going in 2015?
