The Struggle with Setting

I love to write. I have a problem, though, with just jumping in and not dealing with the details. I’m working on a romance novel right now, just barely into the drafting stages. It started with my typically sit-down-and-write-it-out method.

I’ve been playing with writing a romance novel for several years, and for some reason I am now feeling inspired to follow through with that. But if I stick with just freewriting my ideas, I know I’ll have thousands of words, no plot, and a weird mix of attachment and resentment for whatever I come up with by the time I stop.

This is my normal writing process. This is why I haven’t finished anything since taking a fiction-writing course in 2010. Whoops.

This time, I’m taking a pause at just short of 7,000 words to assess what I’ve got. This means seeking advice from my friend (and fellow author) Milton Blackwell. This means coming up with goals and obstacles for my two main characters. This means thinking about setting, which is honestly the last thing I usually think about.