Writing a novel?

Well then...

I will try to make this as brief as possible.

About a month ago I received an email through university about an opportunity to help assist writing a novel. It was incredibly brief and asked for a bit of information about myself, some of my influences and what I thought about the opportunity.

The person who sent the email, Ross, then replied with thanks for the email and gave a bit of information about himself and the project. The novel would be his ideas, plot, characters etc. with myself having the freedom to write in my own style and have my name on the book. Percentage of profits were discussed but obviously that is not for you to know. Money is not the motivation for this at all but let's face it... it sweetens it a little. If the first novel were to go as well as we hope, it would then go on to be trilogy and then on to film.

A couple of emails later, he asked for a small passage of some of my work. I sent him a small piece from a Short Story Coursework assignment I recently did. He found it of a good enough quality to then send me through to the next stage of selection. This was for myself to write out 2 out of 3 scene descriptions he had sent me. One was a car crash, one was a fight scene and the last an emotional dilemma. I did the emotional and car crash scenes. I was lucky enough to have some amazing support from some friends at uni and they gave my work a look over for spelling mistakes and some opinions before I sent it off.

Nervously I waited for a few days for a reply and a few days later he did.

He said that he found my work engaging, saw great potential in me and wanted to work with me if I was interested in committing. I waited a day or two to reply, didn't want to seem too keen, and said yes. He then asked for a day and a phone number to have a chat.

We have since then had a chat and planned out everything. He gave a brief overview of the plot and it all appealed to me immensely. He has sent me some books through the post for me to read from the same genre as our novel will be to have an idea of how it is usually written.

The aim is that in 12 months we will have crafted and perfected a novel that will be published. I do understand the difficulty in getting published, I'm not that naive. But hearing about the connections he has and having two minds work on a novel instead of one, it all seems very promising.

I have beaten others across the country to this opportunity and extremely excited to say that I will be writing a novel!

Writer's Block!

It's late. Like far too late for someone who has to be up early and pack for the tedious routine of moving back home from uni. However, after two heavy nights of drinking and this resulting in late wake-ups, my body clock has decided to give up on me. 

I thought that this would be a good time to write. The silence of the house, the nostalgia that fills me as I think of my second year at uni, the issues of other things, it all feels rather inspiring. I have my Word document up as I read over a short story I did a few days ago and begin to hate myself for writing something dreary and static. With every word that I felt myself to be a genius with, another layer of disappointment mounts up at how wrong I was. Writing has always been something I have had some interest in but only in the last few months have I actually tried to sustain a constant flow of creative works.

It is now that I have hit that elusive and immovable wall. Writer's block.

I have tried writing something new but found that it is more useful spilling my anger out onto my blog. It feels that with every word that goes down, a new fragment of frustration goes down with it. When I am 'in the zone' I actually write with a positive and excited attitude. Now I am just spitting words out of a dry mouth, hoping they will elude the bland nature that sticks to them and actually create something interesting. 

My hope was wasted.

I am now reading over a shrinking paragraph. Each re-read cuts another 5 or 6 words until it is a lonely sentence. So far I have mustered up 'Darkness had placed his hand over the city that night. Without a trace of sympathy he latched himself onto every surface and sucked out the colour like a leech. Slowly the buildings and roads merged into one hole and the man with a box for a home fell into it.' 

To me it just feels like a cliche, boring and amateur lump of turd that I was sceptical putting on my blog in the first place. I can safely say this is the most frustrated I have been whilst writing. I know I am naive 20 years of age and will have to accept that these moments will happen again and again but I would really appreciate some advice.