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.

Hello, Sweetie.

Love this drawing of River Song by AgentBlackBloog at DeviantArt

So, I’m Zadie, and this is my blog. It’s looking kind of bare around here right now, but I’ll eventually get to adding more interesting stuff. I’m an aspiring novelist (aren’t we all?) hitting the ground running on a new WIP that I think will probably end up in the romance genre.

I currently live in Indiana, where I am reading, writing, living, and loving my way through my mid-twenties. I hope to share a bit of my life and my writing (my reading and my loving!) with you through this blog. I already have (what I hope to be) a fascinating read in the works for sometime this week!