Lack of Interest or Lack of Ability?

I'm ready to either give up or treat each writing session as a journal entry. If I had the money to hire a developmental editor, they'd simply throw up their hands. I don't know where this story is going; I barely remember where it's been.

First of all, there is no way in hell both halves of this can ever be combined. Make it a series? Doesn't that require some resolution in the first book? I can't just write, "to be continued".  Plus, I think series are a gimmick, a marketing ploy. As I'm writing now, though, I've completely abandoned the characters from the first half, except for one reference to the main character's mother. 

Secondly, I'm spending far too much time on one plot point, if it can even be called a plot point. It's more like a travelogue. MC is on a mini-tour before her record is released and she's got three hired musicians accompanying her. I think we're getting to know them far more that we ever knew the characters who actually mattered. At this point I've spent days writing about the tour and all the good and bad things that happen on it, but in the larger scheme of things, how important is that, really?

It seems I can write a boatload of words and maybe manage to advance the plot with one sentence out of the entire jumble. This time it's the MC falling in "like" with her lead guitar player. If one reads between the lines (which most of my book reviewers aren't inclined to do*), she's abandoned the relationship she had with her manager after realizing that he is not only unreliable but apathetic.  

*I always assumed that over-explaining is disrespecting the reader.

All those words and this is what I have?

By December, I'll still be writing little vignettes that are supposed to be leading somewhere, but no one, especially me, will even care anymore.

A skilled writer would be able to piece everything together. They'd be able to join the first iteration to the second in a way that makes sense. They'd not abandon the important characters, even though they live thousands of miles away. A skilled writer would be able to weave them into the storyline. A skilled writer would know where the story is heading and would be adept at signaling that, so readers wouldn't toss the book aside in disgust.

Bad plot, maybe? Or bad writer?

I'm frustrated. It's not that I don't enjoy my writing sessions. I'm able to lose myself within a scene and inhabit it. That's why perhaps this story is more like a journal. Just do it because it's fun. It's something to do. 

It could happen that something will spark. It hasn't yet, and time is ticking.