It’s been a few days since posting, which was unexpected. I remember having post ideas swimming around as I published my last musing, but now, I forget what they were. Equally, my writing has been quiet lately. I’ve been writing fairly consistently recently, but I’ve also been fighting this impending quiet period. My writing doesn’t seem to click at the moment. My characters seem stale and my plots are half-baked at best. I have a few projects swimming around. ‘The abattoir short’ and a YA horror novel are the main ones that come to mind.

Whilst I don’t think First Person was the right Point Of View for ‘the abattoir short,’ I did do one of my many drafts in First Person. Another writer suggested that this is a good way to get inside your characters head and when you revert back to writing in Third Person, omniscient or limited, you’re much more in check with your character. See, one of the signs that I was coming into a quiet writing stage was that my Third Person writing seemed very detached from the main character. That is why my Tastes of the Darkness pieces have both been in First Person. But aside from writing a pre-draft in First Person, I realized I really need to know my characters, including antagonists.

Whilst I already have two novels on hiatus, it seems that isn’t enough. I spoke a while ago about writing something for a younger audience, mainly because it would seem a little lighter work than my other novels and also because my 12-year-old sister wanted to read something of mine. I think my regular readers would agree that all my other stuff wouldn’t be suitable. I’ve forgotten about this project lately, but it was when another member of NILTOY mentioned that the ‘Goosebumps’ books were around 20,000 words that I was, once more, hit with a spark. My first taste of horror was through these books and it was the kind of story I was looking to write with my own YA horror. To have a clearer idea of the expected word count gave me a clearer goal.

Now, after Wednesday’s post about being inspired by some vivid dreams, I didn’t actually write anything, which was disappointing. Hopefully, I can turn this around soon.

writing, inspiration, characters, short stories, horror, YA, dreams, Point Of View, Goosebumps, novel writing