I spent all of my time, almost, brainstorming today for a set of scenes that are just not quite working yet. They’re still fuzzy, and fuzzy translates as LAZY on the page. I *did* put in my time, however, and I wrote 250 actual new words once the opening to the scene occurred to me as I was taking a shower.
Huzzah!
I did two writing sessions today, and a lot of just letting the questions swirling in my head simmer. I watched some of Empire Strikes Back, and that really helped me. I took walks with Coops. I watched some baseball and basketball.
I’m getting there. It’s certainly taking longer than I expected…but I’m getting there. I was really, really sweating it today…but the advantage of this new mindset of “writing every day” is that I never feel that way for too long. I’ll cycle through the feelings of “this will never be good” back to “I just need to keep moving forward and I will get this story in the shape it needs to be” within a few hours, just because I’ve resolved not to give up.
This second book is ambitious. No bones about it. This story thread I’m chewing on, particularly, is waaaay complicated, layered, and outside the box. I’m having a hard time wrapping my brain around it because I’m just not sure I’ve seen this particular plot device done before. I’m actively searching for stories right now that HAVE done it, so I might mine those stories for their engineering, their mechanics–why it worked. Perhaps use some of those underlying concepts in my own execution to make sure it lands the way I wanted it to.
I suppose that’s a more positive way of looking at this second book: “ambitious.” It definitely sounds better than “chaotic” and “un-focused” 😛 And it’s true, it IS ambitious for me. I suppose I *did* want to push the envelope a bit. Not too much, mind you: adventure is still very much at the center of this story. Perhaps not so much right now as I’m figuring everything out, but is WILL be there once I have the story completed from beginning to end, and I can start looking at what can be cut, tightened up, and fleshed out.
So…that’s how I’m going to look at this tomorrow. “Ambitious.” My work is to live up to THAT…not to live down to something less.
A’s won! Warriors won! Coops is sleeping. The Ho comes home tomorrow.
Life is good 🙂
Artwork tonight is from Paul Chaidesson.