Difficult Drafts

My current WIP is being difficult. Again. I don't know what it is, but something about this story just feels off. It feels unnatural and I can't seem to escape it. I'm still writing it, I'm determined to finish this draft, but I just feel like it's crap.

I know that all first drafts suck. I get that. But maybe I don't. See, I have this problem, that maybe I shouldn't admit in a public forum like a blog. But here goes anyway: I've only ever completed a draft of one novel. Now that I think about it, I may have admitted that before, but here it is again. Seriously. One.I realized a while ago that, as a writer, this is a VERY BAD THING.

It's not that I don't have more ideas. I have LOTS of ideas. There are at least six more fantasy worlds that I have stories started in and at least two contemporary stories that I've started. But I've never finished any of those.

Now, with the realization a while ago that I was, in fact, a character-first writer, I might have struck upon why I've never finished another novel length project. I'm not so great in the plot department. I get these great characters and these great worlds, but they don't seem to have plots to match them. It's frustrating, but I'm hoping to fix that in the near future.

Anyway, back to my current problem-child. I really want to finish this story, but there's something about it that feels all disconnected, like the pieces of the world don't quite fit together. Like every time I get to thinking about the way the magic in the world works, or the ins and outs of why my antagonist did the things he did and how my characters figure it out, I get frustrated because the pieces just don't quite fit right. I feel like one of my other stories would work SO much easier. I blame the difficulties I'm having on this being one of my "newest" ideas, telling myself that I haven't spent enough time stewing over the world, but I'm not sure that's true.

Still, I'm writing it. Maybe I'll really love it when I'm done. I hope so. Cause the idea's pretty nifty. I just need the nitty gritty bits to work together.

Progress update: so far I've finished 27 of my 51ish scenes. So I'm over half-way finished with the scenes. Yea!