Oh, it’s the 3rd, and we almost have a holiday upon us. I’ve already decided I’m not staying at The Undisclosed Location for the 4th, even if that means driving home for one day, and returning last that night. I’m simply not staying here alone. Not gonna happen. Or what do they say today? ”Hell to the Naw”?
Anyway you look at it, I’m not staying in an empty apartment by myself. It’s bad enough that I have to do this to earn a dollar.
But I will have my computer with me, so the writing continues. It always does. Last night I was able to get into Part Nine of Diners at the Memory’s End a little more, and came up with something I hadn’t realized. Now, this wasn’t a case of having my character jump out at me and go, “No, you don’t get it–I should do this!” My characters are far too sensible for that sort of nonsense. No, this was more along the lines of having a light bulb come on while I was starting to write up the scene as I was planing, and realizing, “Oh, yeah, wait a minute: she can do that . . .” before going off and writing what eventually came out.
It isn’t often I get surprised like that, but it does happen. It’s usually a light bulb moment, because you can’t always plot out for everything. Like I’ve said before, when I write I have a meta-overview of the story, chapter by chapter, and what goes into each chapter is usually considered before I write it out. Like I know how Part Nine will end; I know what will happen in Part Ten; I know what sort of hell Cytheria is going to raise in Part Eleven. I just don’t know the detail, because that comes to me as I write it all out.
Trying to get this all straight in your head, maybe weeks before you write it all out, can be a little tiring. Really, this story has gone on for quite some time; I don’t think I’ve taken this long to reach 25,000 words before–which is the count that Diners is hovering under. Kuntilanak is right around 25,000 words, and I cranked that out in three weeks. The first draft of Her Demonic Majesty was about 85,000 words, and I did that in twenty-five days. I think I’ve been writing Diners for almost six weeks, and I’m pretty sure I’ll be at 27,000 words, or so, come Sunday.
Really, that’s crawling for me.
I feel like I need a good, creative day of writing, where I put out two thousand words in a few hours, and then come back the next day and lay out another two thousand. As eager as I was to get Diners down in Scrivener, it’s inching out of me, almost fighting me for the right to be told. It’s not an easy story, and the way it’s dragging is probably adding to this general feeling that there is a huge amount of stress and crap going on in my life right now.
Which there is, like it or not.
I’ve got July to finish this story, then move on to something else. Something that has been starting to gel in my head. And then I need to get ready for NaNoWriMo. I need to get my head in the right place for that, because if I don’t, that storm of creativity will overwhelm me.
Writing is all about weathering the storm–and at the moment, my shelter is in need of repair.
