Chasing the muse

If you are observant, you might have noticed that there is a new icon on the left hand side of the blog saying I am a Camp NaNoWriMo participant. Yep, that's right! And although than a lower wordcount, I'm not even a rebel: I'm writing NEW words (you know what I mean).

I had no other plans than write (and do a bit of homework) for the holidays, so I figured I'd be able to do quite well. I had a few unplanned things that came up last week, but it wasn't April yet, so who cares? I was in the starting blocks on the 1st April, ready to go! I wrote 2700 words. Which isn't bad, but not the high words counts I was expecting. Then the weekend happened, which wasn't great. Monday was much better, and it looked like this:

Pretty good, huh! Then Tuesday wasn't bad. Yesterday I did some work and then today...

Flatlining!

I have lost my mojo. I don't know why, the story's just left me. I had a plan, and was going with it, chapter after chapter (they're tiny chapters) and even had a few surprises. I don't know if it's taking a break or what, but today I am staring at my computer screen thinking, 'This is sh*te, I don't want to write this.' Some people call it writer's block, but it's not that my mind or my page are blank, it's that the inspiration isn't there, and I feel that what I write is just that: uninspired.

There's a famous quite (although no-one agrees on who said it or what they said exactly) that goes something like this: 'I only write when I am inspired. But I see to it that I am inspired at 9 o'clock every morning.'

I'm trying to sit down, grit my teeth and just get on with it. But instead I'm browsing pinterest boards, reading CampNaNo articles and, well, writing this. Let me be clear, it's not the process or the activity of writing itself that I'm avoiding, it's this mess of words that just won't come out, this feeling that 'it's just not quite good enough, so why bother?'

Come on, Muse, or denial-about-my-own-writing-ability, whatever you're called: come back!