Have you ever had a great writing idea? Awesome characters? A plot? Things actually working out?
And it’s all too good to be true?
I get that way a lot when writing. I can’t decide on how many POV characters to have. What tense am I writing in? What POV am I writing in? How much do I want to tell my readers? Or should they stay in suspense with my characters?
Just what in the world am I doing?
I’m sure many of you are hoping that I have a magic answer to how I solve these things.
I don’t.
This post is a hopeful way of getting myself out of a rut and moving past being paralyzed by writing indecision. Maybe you’ll find some help in it also.
So this is my plan and we’ll see if it works or not.
Just Write.
I’m going to find the characters that I love and their stories, and I’m going to write for my own enjoyment. That means not going by industry standards for certain things. That means taking everything I’ve learned and not overthinking my decisions.
That means listening to my gut instinct and agreeing to follow it.
Most importantly, it means finding stories I love. It means falling in love with my characters and not caring what others think about them. My job is to make real people who are complex and unusual and memorable. Of course that means I have to fall in love with them also. It means not caring about if others don’t like my genre or the story I tell.
That is something I need to let go.
Because what’s the worst that can happen? I write in a POV that I end up not liking? I don’t like a character that gets a POV?
Then I edit. I go back and fix what I don’t like. Or what’s not working.
In other words, I become a writer.
So are you paralyzed by indecision like I often am?
Sit your butt down in the chair (or in my case, on the bed), and write.