Progress… and a problem

654 new words, which brings my total so far to… (drumroll, please)…. 10,036 words.

That’s right, I broke the 10k barrier this morning!

Imma take a moment to bask in that.

Ahhhhhhh!

OK, that’s enough of that.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m thrilled to have reached a milestone like this, even if it is only about 10 percent of the usual word count on a finished novel.

My lack of more effusive celebration is due entirely to the problem I alluded to in the post title. And that problem is also the reason it took me so long to get past this significant-seeming milepost. (Errr, wordpost??)

The problem: I don’t know what my main female character’s deepest motivation is. In other words, I don’t know what she really wants. And as a novel is generally best when the main characters all want something very badly and spend the book interacting and affecting one another as they try to get those things, it behooves me to figure out what my gal wants.

At this point, she’s more drifting than moving. I need to get to the core of the woman’s motivations, because nothing stalls a book (or a life) more than having no idea where you want to go.

Can you say “fiction mirroring the author’s psychological state”? Because I still don’t know what I want to be when I grow up… except very, very old.

Until I get this sorted, I fear my writing is going to be done more in fits and starts than in regular progress.

It’s a little scary.

Can anyone suggest a tool I can use to psychoanalyze my heroine? I could really use the help.

Thanks.

And, one last time: YAY for 10K!