We Now Return to Our Regularly Scheduled Writing

[queenoftheskies]

Okay, so things are calming down. I'm not holding my breath yet, cause things do keep randomly popping up, but...

I'm almost over the major insurance milestone, I think. I should start getting a paycheck soon (get paid every other week but we missed a pay period the week we started), so I hope the major financial crunch will ease over the next month or two, got an appointment made for the doctor (my last doctor made me generally TERRIFIED of doctors) and that milestone will be over next week.

So, now it's time to regain the focus I had while I was writing Ancient Secrets. I liked that focus. It was amazing and empowering and I wish I could feel like that and write like that all the time.

However, I'm not going to deceive myself. It won't always be good like that. And, I have to struggle through when it's not...which is what I've been trying to do the past week or so, even when I was NOT focused.

I still had words and words can always BE FIXED LATER!

Last night, though, when I got home with a load off my mind and I started to relax, I realized that, in order to focus on my writing, I had to clear those other things out of my brain and give the words and the plot room to expand again. The worries and the problems had shoved them into one corner, like a cluttered attic. And, maybe they were even starting to gather cobwebs, too, cause that happens so quickly. One of the reasons I feel writing every day is so important. However, it can happen even if you write everyday, too.

I typed out a couple hundred words and then stopped. I was missing something. I was missing a thread (or two) that I needed to tie together what I'd written over the past week or so on Dawn of Destiny to what I already had there, which was a substantial chunk of story...the meat of the story, in fact.

I needed a couple of threads that would tie the new beginning to the story I already have and ultimately to the new ending I'll write later this month.

I jotted down a note about a scene I wanted to consider. I didn't have details for it yet and, at the time I scribbled down the note, it was going to be a plot mover, but not an actualy thread.

Then I stopped writing for the night, even though I had not reached my goal. I had to water this scene and give it time to grow. I couldn't do that if I was forcing words out on another scene.

By the time I woke up with it this morning, I had an entire thread that leads up to it and through it and ties my story together beginning to end. Hooray!

By the time I got to work, I had another thread that involves a character that was in Ancient Secrets and plays a part in Dawn of Destiny too. By the time I reach the third book in this trilogy (Dawn of Destiny is the first), he's going to be much more important.

This new thread will tie him to another character, link this book back to Ancient Secrets AND make way for a huge revelation (already written...over half the book is already done) in the third book.

Hooray! Hooray!

All it took was cleaning out a little room in the old attic so the ideas had room to come out and play again.

Why is it that I never can realize that when I'm struggling or unfocused? The words and the plot just need room to grow and expand. Crowding them out with everyday worries or trying to overthink what I'm writing doesn't work. It never does.

I wonder if, some day, I'll actually learn.

Comments

[java-fiend.livejournal.com]

It's so good to hear that things are starting to smooth out for you. That's going to be SOOOO good for you.

And yeah, giving the ideas some free space to frolic in is always a good thing.