“A word after a word after a word is power,” according to Margaret Atwood, and she ought to know.
A new learning for me is that writing about why I am stuck is still writing, and I like it better when I write on the blog rather than scribbling in some notebook that I likely can’t read next week. I like seeing what I am thinking, and that opens up ideas that I would not have considered otherwise. It allows nearly forgotten memories, thoughts and beliefs bubble to the top where they can be exploited.
So, despite a rather drippy episode with my sinuses (TMI, sorry!) I sat down BIC-HOK (Butt in Chair, Hands on Keyboard) and tapped out one word after another between draining my nose. I didn’t feel good. I didn’t feel like writing. I had no inspiration except for the image of the scene I didn’t want to write. But I wrote anyway. That is the secret, and apparently it is one I will have to learn over and over.
I couldn’t see how a person would survive being strangled if she were dead to the world in deep sleep, so I woke her up enough to realize that something was not right, hearing her antag banging around in the dark, looking for the wand that they both need to get away from their current location. Then I was free to write the fight scene with my protag having something of a fighting chance.
Two insights into writing on the same day. What a relief! After getting the first 600 words out, another 1000 came right along behind, and I discovered that a third character has information that the protag Maven and the readers will need to tie in another thread concering some other clients of hers–dwarves. Maven has her own thoughts on dwarves
As James Braush is fond of saying, take action. So, having gotten through one scene, I cranked into another, leaving me a good starting place for today. As icing on the cake, another writer left me a comment with some insights to her own process. Take a look at Mystery Shrink’s ideas on writing and learning from the movies.
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