Why I Stopped Writing this Book

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This was supposed to be the Catholic-characters book (not the same one mentioned in another post) I wanted to write, and I have less than 200 pages but I stopped writing because I kept having these imaginings in my head about the characters (based on pictures of real people), it wasn’t out of pleasure rather, they bothered me a lot. this happens when i think about the book or characters or whatever. It is a temptation or impulse etc. should I get over it and continue writing it anyway? or let the characters and book idea die.
 
Do you mean that when you start to build a character you begin seeing them as someone you know or a celebrity?

If that’s what you mean it’s fine because another reader probably wouldn’t notice that you’d done this and I may fact it may help you to build a believable or more authentic character and so add that third dimension to your writing.

Also, I always wanted to write a book and many years ago I suddenly had an idea and it was so strong that I wrote the whole thing in three weeks! It was never published and I have never written anything of length since. But I got it out of my system and that’s fine too.
 
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No, I meant that when I strt to think about the book And characters, I get impure imaginings in my head which have been preventing me from writing further. So I was wondering if I should do it anyhow, or avoid what could be an occasion of sin. And only three weeks, it takes me months!
 
How odd.

How about if you outline your plot? Figure out, “Okay, this is where the story goes.” Break it down chapter by chapter. Figure out the purpose of each chapter, and what it needs to do. Figure out your foreshadowing, your character development, your cliffhangers, your complications, their resolutions, your upping-the-ante, all the twists and turns, and pretty much everything that happens on the way to the resolution at the end.

If you take a few days to write down 10 or 20 pages’ worth of outline, it gives you a direction in which to think. And then the actual writing is just the hard work of connecting the dots. And you’ll be able to see if your characters start straying from where you want them to go— and you’ve got a solid place to herd them towards. You’ve got your rails laid down, and you have no incentive to allow them to jump the rails.

The outline will allow you to focus, because your story isn’t an open-ended path from Point A to Point B— it becomes a series of smaller paths from Point A to B to C to D to E to F to G to H.
 
Maybe you are fantasizing about your own fictional characters because you are lonely.
 
There is nothing harsh about stating loneliness as a possible cause of something. I did not imply that the OP was socially inept or anything else.
 
Why don’t you write about people who are fully clothed and remain that way and who lead very pleasant pious lives and never, ever, have sex! They’re too busy for some reason…and there’s your plot! Every time someone even begins thinking about sex something crops up and it can’t happen!

It’s a thought?
 
You are making it sound as if the OP is writing smut. Perhaps his/her characters have really attractive personalities or a back story. I know a lot of women love male characters with a dark past.
 
Hey I’m back! Let me clarify, I am not deliberately generating these thoughts for my own pleasure. This happens to me in so many other situations, I just have a lot of impulsive thoughts . My concern is this being a occasion of sin because of these thoughts.
 
No. I’m saying that the OP has said that the problem is the writing about these characters is causing he/she to have impure thoughts which may lead to sin, the idea is to write about characters who remain clothed and busy doing something that doesn’t involve sex.

It’s almost like I’m trying to address the problem. 😉
 
identifyasCatholic said:
No, I meant that when I strt to think about the book And characters, I get impure imaginings in my head which have been preventing me from writing further.
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Do you watch a lot of television and/or movies? I can imagine that would channel your creative process toward the typical patterns of behavior the secular media is feeding us. If that’s your problem, try looking at some old movies and reading some old books where the characters are fully human, where they care about right and wrong, where they use their God-given gifts to do what is right…
 
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I am afraid you think that my characters are being impure and that’s why I am having these thoughts. No, this happen and to me in a lot of other situations. And I was not writing impure scenes throughout the book - I did once but it was not exactly for pleasure purposes rather something that happened that negatively impacted my main character. it was not my main character’s fault (so not promoting impurity) , rather something an antagonist did but they are supposed to be the “bad person in the book” And I even erased that scene which had so little detail that it was just confusing.
 
What I was saying is that perhaps the OP is already doing what you are saying that he/she is doing and it is something else that is causing the OP to have these thoughts. Also, no need to get sassy we me.
 
Do you have a spiritual director? That might be a good idea for guidance with matters like this.

The answer to whether you’d need to stop is I think not necessarily, but the right thing to do is highly dependent on the details of your specific situation, which can’t really be evaluated thoroughly (or appropriately) by people here.

You say these kinds of thoughts are common for you in other situations as well. Have you looked into getting the opinion of a professional about that? This sort of thing is often a feature of conditions like OCD, but I don’t know to what extent this is affecting you.
 
I no longer understand the problem.

The smiley was winking, that’s my way of saying I’m joking.

God bless.
 
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