Stuck in the Unsticky Summer

I’ve had writer’s block before, and what helps me is to remind myself that when I get unstuck I discover something exciting that I hadn’t intended to do. But that doesn’t make writer’s block easier. I find myself dreading my writing mornings instead of looking forward to them, but I keep at it–giving myself the goal of at minimum scratching out another two pages of “dreck” (Yiddish word for disgusting garbage).

I’m realizing that in this revision, I’m trying to add in characters that don’t interest me, so that’s why I can’t write scenes with them. So the trick will be to discover something about them that I find compelling. For days I’ve been writing dribs and drabs about them to try to find the key, but so far they are deadly boring.

Today I’m going to try a new tactic–I will go back over what I’ve already done and combine two of these characters into one. Perhaps that will help provide more depth in these paper-thin people. I will probably throw all this away tomorrow, but it could be a way in.