Writer's Block or....?

Up until now, I've never really experienced writer's block. My imagination runs wild and usually gazing a few minutes out a window or taking a walk will solve my problem. Sometimes waking up in the morning and staying a few minutes in bed is another way to kickstart my creativity. With my latest attempt, however, it's been a different story.

The premise of the book was a woman from 2010 is transported back to 1774 Boston and finds herself in a situation where she has to marry a British soldier. There is all kinds of conflict simmering, from internal to external, and at first it was fun. The first chapter was easy to write. The next two chapters I rewrote two or three times before it was passable. Then, I wondered where was this story going? Will this really work? How can I weave the history and fiction together? How can it be believeable? I let it simmer for a week or so and came to a conclusion: I loved the characters, but the story felt more forced than anything else I'd written in a long time.

For anyone who writes, if something feels forced, warning bells usually go off in your head. I'm not denying that parts will be difficult to write, I've been there before, but there's a difference between difficult and forced. Parts of the second book of my Secondworld series were difficult, but never forced. The only reason I stopped writing that story (for now) is that if I can't sell the first book, writing the second is a little pointless. I have ideas of how to change it into a stand alone book if I have to, but I've put it aside for now, content to come back to it when the time is right.

My Boston story, however, feels forced. I don't mind rewriting scenes (I'm not one of those people who can just write it all out, never looking back until the first draft is complete), but having to rewrite two consecutive chapters two or more times is a warning bell. So I decided to shelf the idea for now, until the idea develops or the feeling of writer's block for that story goes away. I had one idea on a shelf for five years before I wrote something that was worthwhile, so there is hope.

All is not lost, however. I've taken the world of my 1891-1892 Secondworld books and put it in the context of the 21st century. The idea came while reading the two novellas in Deep Kiss of Winter and Stephen King's, On Writing (what if?). It's in the vein of the paranormal romance books I read religiously and if I read so many of them, and enjoy them, then why am I not writing one? I'm reveling in my no-plot mode and just typing away. Let's hope the story never becomes forced.