Saturday, August 27, 2011

Like I Need Another Book to Read...

A couple weeks ago, I went book shopping at Wal-Mart and bought two new books to read: PC and Kristin Cast's Dragon's Oath: A House of Night Novella, and just up the shelf from it was Stephenie Meyer's The Twilight Saga: the Official Illustrated Guide. I had the Twilight Guide pre-ordered through Amazon, so it came as a shock to my system when I saw it on the store shelf. I've never received the book through Amazon, and as far as I knew, it hadn't came out yet.

Well I only meant to browse through the Twilight guide when I took it off my bookshelf earlier today. A couple hours later, I'm 135 pages into it! It sucked me into an unseen vortex like I've experienced with the rest of the Twilight Saga. I should've known better!

After the book's introduction, there is a section called "A Conversation with Shannon Hale." Kind of like an artist on artist interview with Stephenie Meyer, authoress of Twilight, and Shannon Hale, authoress of Enna Burning and several other sci-fi/fantasy novels.

During one section entitled "On Finding Story Ideas," Stephenie Meyers brings up the topic of writer's block. She says, "For me, it's time. I don't usually experience the kind of writer's block that people talk about. My kind of writer's block is when I know what needs to happen, and I just have a stumbling block--some transition that I can't get past (pg. 53)."
I was shocked when I read this because that is exactly what's happening with my own writing at the moment. I know what needs to happen, but I'm struggling to put it into a coherent sentence. I'm just so glad that I'm not alone in this world! I was beginning to wonder if it was some crazy happenstance that affected only me. Conceited, I know!

Near the end of the conversation, Stephenie Meyer brings up another point I experience in a section pertaining to "On Balancing Writing and Life." She's asked the question, "It's like having a newborn, writing a book, isn't it?" To which her response is, "It is. Well, because you like there in bed--and, oh, heaven help you if you start thinking about the plotline. If you start getting a little bit of dialogue in your head, you're doomed--you'll never get to sleep (pg. 61)."
Again, my response was "Yay, I'm not alone in this either." I've had many sleepless nights because even though I'm physically tired, my brain doesn't want to shut off. And I can't always drown out the voices in my head when I've been writing for hours, and the characters don't seem to want to let me sleep. They say, "Write this now, dammit!" To which I'm not given any peace to get some REM sleep until I've appeased everybody, and the voices die down.

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