Writing Through the Wall

Writing Through the Wall

So I've done it. I've done what I've always wanted to do. I've published a book. Not only that, but I don't have any plans to stop now. I, in fact, have three more books planned between now and the summer of 2015. Cybersaurus: The Awakening wasn't exactly a hit (in fact, very, very few people know about it, in the grand scheme of things), but I am certain that the more books I put out, the more I'll start to get noticed, and the more they may pick up steam.

I've decided shortly after finishing Cybersaurus: The Awakening that I wasn't going to visit Cybersaurus Season Two: Revolution until 2015, and that I would take quarter 4 of 2014 and quarter 1 of 2015 to pursue two other novels. Some friends of mine seemed excited for me to begin writing a suspense and horror novel, and so I set out to do just that, titled The Visitors Season One: Quarantine.

Yet it has taken me an abysmally long time to write Episode One of that season, and the entire time my mind keeps wandering back to Cybersaurus. Is this the Wall that every creative mind encounters? Or is it a general disinterest in my own work?

Cybersaurus was a fun and exciting story to write, and it covered everything I wanted it to at the time, with plenty of room to grow into the areas I hadn't yet explored. The Visitors deals largely with the unknown, and how it can drive the fear and anxiety of the core characters. It is an equally exciting story, and even though I am more sold on the premise than I am on my actual writing of it, my girlfriend is in love with the first episode and strongly encourages me to continue it.

But it just seems to fall short of my expectations, of what I set out to do. Cybersaurus did the same thing, though what it did well was so satisfying to me that it was easy to overlook the things it had missed. I was so captivated by a cybernetic tyrannosaurus rex in capitalist future America that I didn't care if characterization was a little ham-fisted at times, or if some parts of the plot were simply too coincidental. I resolved to do better with the second book, now that the ground work was laid, and I promised myself I wouldn't be too distracted by a cybernetic dinosaur ON THE MOON!

With The Visitors, however, it has a very different pace, a very different feel, than Cybersaurus. Cybersaurus had a formula of never stopping, never slowing down, and always upping the stakes until the very last chapter of the season. The Visitors moves much slower, taking more attention to the details of the characters that I was fine with overlooking before. Season one, and especially episode one, work to capture the feel of the environment, the tones of a displaced Pacific-Northwest, the uncertainties of the alien visitors just over the horizon, and what it means for the sliver of humanity that lives in their shadow.

So is this desire for Cybersaurus: Revolution me actually becoming disinterested in The Visitors? I don't think so. I like to think that this is another incarnation of the writer's wall. I found it when I was first outlining Cybersaurus: The Awakening Episode One, and again when I was writing Episode Three. Now I'm finding it once again, larger, sturdier, and thicker, after the end of Episode One of The Visitors: Quarantine. It is a very resilient opponent, one that can only be defeated with dedication to the work and belief in my own abilities.

And while I may not feel that The Visitors is turning out exactly as I originally hoped, I do at least have the faith that if I continue through to the end, the issues I'm facing now will be brought to light more readily by Episode Six, and I will know how to turn back and correct them during editing and revisions.

Plus, if I give Revolution more time to ferment within my creative mind, it will only get better, right?