Novel Update - Day 18

I've almost come to a complete standstill on this novel. I only wrote 500 words on Friday, and I didn't write anything yesterday. I literally just stared at the screen and then eventually just went to bed. I don't think I have ever hated a novel during its creation as much as I hate this one right now.

And it's not even that bad. The story has potential. I just can't get it there right now. I don't know how to pull it out.

Currently writing a character in the midst of early grief. Trying to write the initial anger, and it's hard. As I've mentioned before, writing is a lot like acting -- you have to feel, really feel, what you're writing.

And because I'm in school, and because I am on my literal last chance to be happy enough to keep my place in this program, I can't let myself feel the anger that I need for this novel. I think that's why I'm struggling SO MUCH with this novel. I am no longer allowed to be angry or even remotely sad because my friends have died and my cousin has died. I'm not even allowed to access those feelings for the purposes of creating a character and telling a fictional story. And it's stifling me. It's stifling me as a human with a soul that's prone to wounds, and it's stifling me as an artist trying to come alongside those who feel alone in their anger and grief and the pain of being alive while others aren't.

I hate that I'm being told what I can and cannot feel, and I hate what that kind of Cloud Cuckoo Land restriction is doing to my artistic output. This novel is an abyss of repetitive character ramblings on nothing at all because they're not allowed to feel anything because I'm not. I guess art does imitate life. As readers we'd never stand for such an emotionally flaccid book but we expect it of our real, theoretically bright Technicolor lives all the time. And that's what I tend to write about -- stories that could be real life. What a sad state society is in. But is it society or is it just me?

(Yes, I will be booking a counselling appointment tomorrow...)