I love the honeymoon phase of writing. Everything is so fresh and sweet. The words that pour out of your mind are perfect, flawless, the best words you have ever strung together in a string before in your life. This has got to be the most exciting part of writing a new story.
Unfortunately, I know it will end. Before its over I will be a bitter, self doubting man with a furry expanse of face and what can only be the worst thing I have ever written sitting in my Scrivener folder, waiting to be ignored. But that’s not today. Today is the sweet zone still.
If you’ve been following the word counter in the right hand sidebar, I’ve been keeping it up to date this week. I’m averaging about 1k words a day, which means I’m right on target for the almost leisurely pace I wanted to set. I also know that this means in about 10-15k, I’m going to lose that stride, and what’s been gravy up to this point is going to become actual work again.
This time, though, I have a plan. Well, maybe “plan” is too strong a word. I have a strategy? For starters, I’m working on an outline. “Wait, aren’t you supposed to have that done before you start writing?” Shaddup and drink your tea. My brain doesn’t quite work that way. Some have questioned whether it works at all, but that’s between me and a neurophysicist. Don’t you mean neuropsychologist? Nope – neurophysicists study whether neurons actually are capable of being transmitted, and what they might be constructed of. And yes, I totally made that up, because my creative centers are on FIRE right now. I’m so excited about writing new material I’ve actually contracted a mild case of hypergraphia. And yes, there is nothing like writing on the back of an old grocery list in pink ink at 2 in the morning because if you don’t get this brilliant bit of dialogue down now, you will never know what these two characters might have said to each other again. And then where will your story be, the story that apparently hinges on being able to note random dialog in the wee hours with hot pink ink? Well?
Right, my plan. My plan is to keep the outline moving at least a few chapters (so about half a dozen scenes) ahead of where I’m actually at in writing. I have a general sketch of where the story is going, where it will end, and some of the scenery along the way, but not committing too far in advance to a detailed outline leaves me open to new directions and ideas along the way. A fool’s compromise, perhaps, but its working so far. Well, 6k words isn’t much in the way of headway, not just yet, but you get the idea. Sure, this isn’t so much of a plan as a general guideline on how not to crash the car, but its a start.
OK, that’s how my writerly week is going. How about you all?
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- Just Write (thescarlettletterbox.wordpress.com)
- Neil Gaiman’s Writing Advice (silverbirchpress.wordpress.com)
- Writing Rituals (genreality.net)
