Writer's difficulties

I am now past 55,000 words in the story "A Far Sun". I'm not entirely sure what I should call the work, since it's more than just an outline or a synopsis. Perhaps it's more appropriate as a first draft for a novel, since the length I'm envisioning seems to put it at about novel length. I do still plan to publish it as an online graphic novel. A web comic. But I'm being encouraged to make it into a more conventional work.

I am up to the part in the story where Adam and Jane (and some others) leave the sun-skin village (oh right! I haven't even mentioned the sun-skins, have I?) on a journey to find the old library. There they hope to discover what the disease is, so they might have a chance to develop a cure. Vain hope, maybe, but perhaps not so vain. (Sun-skins? Disease? Village?)

The difficulties I'm having are the result of having to write a particularly difficult passage in the story. First a newborn baby dies from the disease (a major element of conflict in the story, since Adam almost dies from it). Then there are complications from another birth, where another mother-to-be dies from placenta previa, but Jane is there to perform an emergency C-section and save the baby. She has difficulties believing she didn't actually murder the poor woman.

In order to write passages involving strong emotions of my characters, I have to be willing to "get down to their level" and actually feel some of the same emotions. I'm not an actor, but I'm pretty sure this is what many of the best actors do. It lends an air of credibility to the work, because the emotions are genuine. This process greatly sensitizes me to my feelings--sort of puts my heart on my sleeve. As a consequence, I notice everything and everyone around me much more acutely.

I have also observed that once I have good, strong characters, writing about them almost becomes a matter of simply recording their reactions to the situations they find themselves in. It's strange, but that's how it feels to me. Dialog and action seem to write themselves, so the task becomes simply editing the writing so it flows and that I don't leave out anything important. Also that I don't include anything unneeded.

So now I'm suffering a post-emotional letdown. It's like being depressed, or maybe simply being drained. Yes, it takes the air out of things, so to speak. Maybe if I had a strong idea for the next scene I could write my way out of, but so far nothing has jumped out at me. Sure, I know where the story is going and what's going to happen, I just haven't planned the next few events.

Actually that's not true. I have everything planned. There are some bad guys who will be making their appearance in the story, and they will provide a different sort of conflict for my heroes to take on. This may be about the midpoint, or perhaps just past it. The spring celebration event just concluded actually feels like a beginning, of sorts. Of course it was immediately followed by two deaths, so the story is not really trending upward. Yeah, the spring thing signaled a couple of important changes. Both Adam and Jane found and/or cemented relationships with their "significant others", and then they decided they needed to make a journey away from the village to get more answers. This would be the second time they have come to realize that you can't go forward if you stay in one place.

Well, let's see if I can get back to work ...