Yesterday, I put aside the draft I was working on for my next book. As the title of this post implies, I simply lost all enthusiasm for it. Two protagonists, one written in first person and one written in third. Pure fantasy, not modern. Less action, more detail and scenery. I managed to get about a third of the way through my outline and it was becoming more and more difficult to sit down and tap out a paragraph or two, let alone a page.
I was always enthusiastic about the Demon series because Zay was just so much fun to write. All of the characters were fun. Kevin and his friends were also a lot of fun. I wasn’t ever quite as enthusiastic for those books since it was the second or third time I’d completely re-written them. Even the books in those series I was least enthusiastic about, I got through the drafts without burning out to this point.
I could strip it down to the bones and start over. At some point, I probably will, since I do like the story at its heart. I just can’t muster the willpower to do it right now.
This is not to say I don’t have other things in mind. I just found a short story I wrote back in 2005(!) that I really like and can expand upon. I wrote a couple of pages for another flash idea yesterday, and then I have two other stories that have about a paragraph of notes each. Is this a setback? Maybe. Either way, I’ll be working on an outline or two today.