Day Five

It was the first day of school so I've been going since about six o'clock this morning. Only a half day so they were back before I even had my lunch. And tonight we get to go to the open house. So while I did manage to up my total word count to 11, 186 I must confess that I did lift a section from an old story and plopped it in this one. It works perfectly for now. It got Grace from one place to another and I did write close to a thousand new words. I left off with Grace hovering outside her daughter, Lucy's window after coming home early from the night shift at the hospital and finding the boyfriend's bike leaning against the house under her window.

While I like the way I'm doing this and it's working and it's helping me get over the huge hurdle of writing a "novel" I realize that sitting down to write each day isn't my biggest obstacle. I can easily (most days) sit down and let the words fly, racking up pages and stories. What I'm finding more difficult is really honing those stories once they get back from my wonderfully awesome writer's group. I must have twenty stacked up by now. I need to get over the idea that if I'm not typing at a furious pace or scribbling just as furiously in a notebook that it's not a productive writing session. Revision, especially at the stage that many of my stories are at, is a much slower process. It takes time.

Quote:

"Don't hurry to make sense. You might land too quickly and miss out on half your mind."
- from Thunder and Lightning

I like how it echoes my thoughts on not hurrying. Not making sense too quickly is usually when the great stuff happens. Things you weren't expecting. Things that surprise you, your characters and your reader. I know that as these next few weeks sneak up on me that I'll be pulling prompts from different places, not knowing how it will fit into the story or even if it will but if I just keep flying without landing too quickly there might just be some great surpises in store for me and my characters.