Slogging Through the Swamp of My Plot

I was talking with a friend this morning and she asked me how my Nano novel was going. I said that I felt like I was slogging through the swamp of my plot. The image that came to mind was that my plot was sucking me in, and not in a good way, that it was murky and convoluted and difficult. Nothing very exciting is happening right now. These are transitional scenes, things that need to happen, but aren't that much fun to write. Scenes that I realize that I will be editing heavily later, because if I feel this way about them, how will others feel?

I think I've also got some swamp monsters who are doing their own thing, distracting me, sending me off in crazy directions. Not that this is always a bad thing. It can be great to be pushed in different directions. At the same time, it can be frustrating and even a bit scary.

But, a funny thing happened. When I started googling pictures of swamps, I came across amazingly beautiful pictures. It was actually hard to find pictures of yucky, sloggy swamps. These pictures immediately made me look at my novel differently.

Swamps are actually exotic, rich, alive, lush, fertile places. Maybe my plot is too. Maybe if I feed it this compost of transitional scenes I'll come out with something worthwhile, something I can work with to edit later. Maybe I just need to stop, step back and get a broader perspective. Taken as a whole, I think it's pretty good. Really, I love my story, it's fun, interesting, and challenging. Sometimes that is hard to see when I look to closely at one little part.

How's your writing going this month?