I'm feeling a bit lost at the moment. I do hit these roadblocks with most every story I write, and I eventually manage to bust through them, but they're still deflating. Not every writing day is necessarily a good day. Sometimes I'm very inspired; and then there's a day like yesterday.
My biggest "tell" when I'm uninspired is my word choice. I didn't even try to write elegantly, instead settling on pedestrian sentences, a few of which even started with "then".
Worse, I rushed the story. I would estimate that in the course of four hours worth of writing, my main character found a manager, did a recording session, fell in "like" with said manager, argued for her own interpretation of the song she was instructed to record; did so successfully, and now she's on a tour of radio stations because her record is climbing the charts. All this would be fine and dandy, except I devoted maybe one paragraph to each of those scenarios. Editing, here I come. I guess I should just adopt the majority opinion of "just get the story down" in the first draft.
Probably the reason all these episodes were so short was that I wasn't in the mood to write.
One thing I did do correctly was have MC call one of her friends back home. She'd skipped town without a word to anyone except her band leader (and only because she had to tell him), and now she's on the road to making amends. The first friend she'd called was gracious about it, but things began to read as too pollyannish. So the most recent call did not go well. This friend iced her out. By far, that was the best scene I wrote all day, and even that one was probably six lines of dialogue, tops.
My problem, which has always been my problem, is writing short. But in my defense, how much really needs to be said about a particular scene? I know readers typically want more meat, but which meat? For example, she's in the recording studio and her manager pushes the powers-that-be to allow her to record an alternate take of the song. The label exec spouts off about, "how dare she question the most successful songwriting team in town?", while her record producer chimes in that he's open to trying it. Her manager reminds the exec that the studio time is already booked anyway, and the exec acquiesces. She records the song her way and in the end, everyone likes it.
What the hell else is there? I'm not going to go into the minutia of the recording process. How boring would that be? Would I need to make up lyrics, too? Come on. Admittedly, I go for impact. The exec losing his cool being a prime example. That reveals enough about the character without showing him stomping off in rage. And he's not a bad guy; he's just under a lot of pressure from the higher-ups. I don't want to portray him as an ogre.
Maybe when I read it back, it won't be as bad as I think. Maybe, too, I'll come up with some additions that aren't superfluous. I believe that every line should count and thus I'm not going to pad.
This is a harder story to write than I imagined it would be. But I'll get there.
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