Parts 1 and 2

Second Chance, if I ever finish it, will definitely be broken into separate parts. I'm assuming that's unusual for a novella. Novellas don't even have chapters, much less separate blocks. I don't know any other way to join the book together. What began as my usual small-town girl moves to a new town, meets a bunch of quirky characters, falls in love, blah, blah, blah...has now turned into, yes, that first part, but now a completely different world that small-town girl finds herself in. Obviously I'm lost as to how to meld the two halves together.

I don't know where I went wrong. Well, I sort of know. The original Second Chance was half a story, so in revising it I needed to invent another inciting incident. The most interesting way to go was to have MC escape her current circumstances. But with her relocating to the big city and starting a new career she would inevitably be interacting with new people. 

Now it feels like I'm writing a completely different story.

Because of my lack of direction, I can see this book taking months to finish. My suspicion is that I'm losing interest in writing, unfortunately. When I do have a writing day, I just keep adding new anecdotes that don't go anywhere. 

As a reader I would grow bored waiting for something important to happen, or I'd at least want all these random scenarios to underlie a larger theme.  

Perhaps this will be a story for my eyes only. Not even that, really. I've never once gone back and read any of my books. 

Somewhere in this morass there's a decent story to be told. I can't seem to tell it. Planners have it easier than someone like me who only has vague "thoughts". And to be frank, this new chapter in MC's life is interesting and fun to write. Tying it to the old, however, remains a mystery.

I keep thinking that if I show all she's going through in her new career, she's going to become more and more disillusioned. But these scenes need to have heft and they don't. They're interesting character studies, but that's all. 

My first true failure? Well, all my books have essentially failed in terms of sales, but they never failed me personally. 

I'm not stopping -- yet. What else do I have to do but keep writing? I think I have the opposite problem from my MC. She has the ability, but not the drive. I don't have the ability, but I'm a plugger. 

Maybe the light bulb will switch on at some point in the story. It could happen.