Taking a Break

Every so often, I have to take a step away from the novel and work on other small writing projects. I do this so that I can explore other plots, settings, and characters, while also connecting these new thoughts to my novel. An example of this is when I develop the main female character in each of these new stories (mostly in first person). Each of them have the main characteristic of being strong women, with the strength varying from character to character. Each of them have different reasons for being strong and different obstacles that test their strength. By writing about them, it allows me to gauge if I should make Elizabeth, the main first person female in my novel, more or less strong in different parts of the book. Additionally, writing other stories keeps me from going insane when I get severely frustrating writing my novel.