Writer's block...

So I'm up to Chapter 8 on my novel and for the most part it's going well. It's one of those stories that seem to write themselves, or the characters direct the action. However, I'm at the end of this chapter and they seem to have stopped helping. I stared at the blinking cursor for a full five minutes, fingers on the keyboard, and nothing coming out. I guess I should've chosen a simpler concept and plot for my first novel, but I'm 95 pages in and it's too late to quit now. Even my dreams won't help me at this point.

At the risk of sounding like Stephenie Meyer, this story came to me in a dream (or rather, a series of dreams) when I was in high school. It was about a girl who lived on a desert island that had the rare ability to control and coax the natural elements. I kept the idea in my head, but never really did much with it because that girl in the desert was all I had. A few years later, I had a dream about an enormous black citadel, reaching past the clouds, its windows glittering like fireflies. I added that citadel to the story and kind of went from there, even taking that for my title (Citadel of Fireflies).

I've been writing Citadel of Fireflies since August, though I made up the characters and the first basic idea of plot back in late winter 2010. I'm painfully slow at writing this, I'm afraid. Beginning the journey was easy, and I know how it ends (for the most part)... I even know most of the middle, but it's the struggle of filling in those gaps that are the challenge. It's a fun challenge, but immensely difficult. Fantasy is difficult to write because you have to balance several characters while still making them complex and likeable, the world that you've created with the cultures and people of different lands, how magic works in that world, creatures you've created, the gods the people worship, and more. At the same time, you've got several small side plots that tie into the main plot, characters that may change or affect those plots, and rough patches until they reach their goal.

It's the hardest thing I've ever done and I love it. I've rewritten what I have so far twice and it's still awful, but knowing I'll get there someday keeps me writing.

It's a shame writer's block had to strike.

If anyone's curious, my story centers on a girl named Kishna living with a desert tribe. She is a shaman apprentice, studying under a mentor believed to be the last known practicing shaman. For her last test, she is to go on a spirit journey, where she has a vision of her village being ransacked and its people either killed or taken as slaves for King Falden - a dying king who is building a citadel that will reach to the heavens and drain power from the gods for himself. She manages to save her village, but she and some others are still captured. Somewhat later, she discovers that the only way to destroy the citadel and close the portal between their world and the heavens is to gather the six mortal avatars of Nadala, the goddess of purity, sent by her to combat the evil in the world. Once gathered, these avatars, called Virtues, are able to call upon their godly powers and put an end to that evil.

The tl;dr version: A chick tries to destroy a thing. And there's magic.

Hopefully the end of Chapter 8 and the beginning of Chapter 9 will come to me soon, as I'd rather like to continue. Until then, here's the usual question for the end of my blog posts: What keeps you reading a story? Do you want to know if the characters succeed, or what will happen to them? Are you interested in the setting and are curious as to what will happen to it? Or do you read it because you have to?