NaNoUhOh

So, as I did last year, I'm tackling National Novel Writing Month.

I have not had the excellent start that I did last year.

Some of this is because I don't have a writing buddy that I am meeting with on a regular basis as I did when The Novelist and I were using NaNo as an excuse to get together and eat ice cream.

Some of this is because I've been slammed by work deadlines. The less I say about these, the better. We'll just say that I'm having some BIG problems of late.

And some people are awful.

But much of the issue is stemming from the fact that I started an idea that I find I have no interest in at all, mostly because I fear I have created a lead character who is entirely uninteresting.

And why is that?

I believe it is because the individual that I put on paper is likely 20 years younger than the character that is shuffling about in my head. The character in the manuscript I have been writing has short blond hair. In my head, he is a balding, what's left of his curly red hair is only on the sides. He has a paunch. He wears tweed trousers and thick rimmed glasses and, for the purposes of the where and when of the story, he would likely have a raincoat of some sort. In my mind, it's a very traditional khaki colored trench with at least one missing button.

So why, I find myself wondering, is this other guy wandering around in my story while the person I think I was meant to be writing about is stuck in my head.

I have no idea if trading these two guys out will solve my problems. I have no idea why there's some blond guy in jeans bumping about the pages that I'm struggling to write. I mean, what's so scary about putting yourself in the head of a sixty-year old guy whose facing an occupational crisis and is feeling pushed out and overshadowed by people whose greatest advantage is being hip and attractive and whose greatest talent is how much they've achieved at a very young age.

Oh.

Right.