Road block ahead.

I knew when I started this Project 150 that there could be trouble ahead. The biggest sign was me making a blog post about it saying “Hey, this is going to be so easy that there’s no way it could go wrong.”

Naturally, this last month has been filled with all kinds of distractions and impediments. It’s part of the Great Birthday Roll, where a member of the family has a birthday every month between February and June, so there’s gifts and things to be arranged. Spring has arrived, so the activity in the garden has ramped up too:

Finally, and the one that’s put the most railway ties across my writing, has been the paid work. If I have paid work in the hopper, I feel I have to do that first, because this Project 150 story MAY, eventually, make it out there as an e-book, but each script I appraise brings in more than total e-book sales for a year. This does NOT mean I make a great deal from each appraisal. It means I sell very, very few e-books, at very low prices.

So the outrageous pace of writing that kicked off the New Year so well has slowed, and slowed and finally stopped. Worst of all, I have written myself into a corner.

I had a plan, see. Eddie and his folks in the Kingdom would be content, but overworked. they need more living people to help get the crops going and clear out the zombies to make a life, rather than just surviving. Then a military-style convoy rolls in, but these guys aren’t interested in homesteading, just grabbing supplies and heading out again. Eddie goes and talks to them, and the head guy DOES want the convoy to settle down, but Eddie gets the distinct impression that these people will NOT integrate well. In fact, he may just be looking at his new military overlords. This does not sit well with Eddie, so he gets the word out to evacuate the kingdom, making the folks hard to find and enslave.

But Eddie doesn’t want to fight the convoy people. I’ve got this story to a point where the good guys are hiding from the bad guys and it might just stay that way for the foreseeable future. What could make the convoy people change their smash and grab ways, and choose to live in peace with the folks of the kingdom? If Eddie isn’t going to outfight the convoy, how can he outwit them? I’ve always told myself that my characters aren’t going to do anything stupid, but right now that means they’re all being sensible and nothing is happening.

I have a week’s holiday coming up in a few days. Sometimes, when holiday approaches, I imagine I’ll have time to sit and write, but I’m being realistic this time. The kids will be around the house, the laundry will still need doing, and Mrs Dim needs to be taken places and entertained so she doesn’t go mad. Plotting Eddie is way, way down the list. Looks like March might close out without any more progress.