Where's the Beef?

I originally conjured the idea of Funny Ties more than a year ago but didn't put it to paper until just three months ago. That's not entirely true though, I didn't come up with the story a year ago that eventually became my novel. All I came up with at that time was my hero the main character of my story.

I go for a walk every night and I remember it was a cold wintery day and dark, I am thinking it was sometime in January or February. I came up with the character of Darrell Smith the main character of my story and the moment I got home I poured out two whole pages of the story and subsquently left the project at that point for more than a year. You see I had no middle to my story. I had a clear beginning, a good ending and a great character but not middle. Where's the beef?

I think that is why in the ten years of me actually wanting to write a novel I never actually put pen to paper or fingers to keys. I had good ideas and great characters but I was unsure of that middle part, what happens when you are going from point A to point B. I could have hammered out novellas and short stories by the dozens because truth be told you don't really need that great of a middle in such works of fiction.

But more than a year after the character of Darrell Smith was born as I was taking a walk once more the middle came to me. It had been another idea for a story I had always wanted to write and it fit perfectly with Darrell Smith. No longer did my book lack the beef, it finally had its quarter pound of beef to fit inside its buns.

I wonder if other writers go through this, maybe this is what writer's block is for many writers. So I sit here at 1am typing thoughts as they spill out of my brain and lament the fact that the second novel I wanted to write, a story that has nagged me for a decade still has no beef. I am thinking the novel I dreamt up just two months ago has more beef and I still should be concentrating on editing my first novel before I worry about my second one but I can't help it editing sucks and I want to get back to writing.