Tuesday, February 17, 2009

To Keep Themistocles Waiting...

...Is a bad idea to be sure.

Argh.

I'm on the last 1/3 of the race, and my energy is flagging. My Themistoc/kles novel is soooo close to being finished and yet I haven't felt the urge to write. That might be because my work and social calender have gotten a lot more full, and life in general has gotten a lot more stressful. Still, it's not fair to Thems or myself to make him just sit there in Attica, waiting for a final showdown with Xerxes (the battle of Salamis is done, but there's still a wall to build, an Assembly to manipulate and a Spartan army to prod along!)

Has anyone had this happen? How does one gather inner energy to make it through the final lap in the race?

2 comments:

Constance Brewer said...

Been there, done that. You have to find a way to fall in love with your characters again, to get excited about what happens. It's not so easy at the end when you feel like you know everything about them, down to their favorite sandal color. It's also the feeling like the end is inevitable, one direction only... not to mention, we don't want our story to end. :)

Scott Oden said...

Sometimes, you have to do it even when there's no passion for it. Maybe by making yourself write the embers of passion will reignite, causing a fire that will light your way to THE END. Or maybe not. But it's paramount that you keep working on it, even if it means rearranging your schedule so that writing is foremost.

Steven Pressfield covers this form of Resistance quite well in "War of Art."