how to plan/Writing depression

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

This is not asking you how you already write, what your habits are. I want specific recommendations on processes and specific activities.

My writing has felt inadequate lately. I'm completely stumped on how to improve a section of my novel I'm working on. And I don't know how to start another one. It's not a lack of ideas. i have more ideas written down already than I'll ever use. It's a matter of getting those ideas to work together, and once they are together, how to do an entire novel without doing something stupid to get to the next point.

So, how is it done?

[Archon]

I would suggest that you write something stupid to get to the next point. That gets you writing, and then later, you can get a better idea of how things can fit together, when you can better see the plot, as a whole. Since you will most likely want to rewrite when you are done anyway, it's just a matter of going back and changing things around.

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

That's what's got me stuck. I'm on the second draft of the novel I'm working with.

[42]

Have you considered writing all of your ideas down on a large piece of paper. Circle each idea. Then draw lines between each idea that seems connected, perhaps with an explaination of how they are connected. You could also rate how strong the connection is between ideas (number or line color or width).

Does that help?

[The Holy Saint, Grand High Poobah, Master of Monkeys, Ehlers]

that is a lot better. it's soemthing to consider

[stacer]

MsFish was talking about this a while back, and she said something that I've noticed intuitively about other books but rarely think about when I'm writing: Forget plot, think about conflict. What is motivating your characters? What is the natural result of what they want? What is the main problem of the story, and how will the character solve it? If you think about that, then it might be easier to figure out what the character does in specific situations.