I spent last weekend just writing. Writing in between housework, and writing in between running errands, and writing to just pass the time because the ideas are flowing like an open tap at this point.
I’ve reconnected with my muse in ways I thought were long lost.
I’d forgotten just how freeing it is to get all of these characters, their conversations, their thoughts, and their adventures out of my brain, through my fingers, and onto the screen.
It was the most cathartic weekend I’ve had in a very long time, like a part of me had just awoken from a very long sleep.
I wrote over 14,000 words in three days amidst a surge of creativity and story building!
I think my biggest breakthrough (besides figuring out exactly why I had hit a brick wall in the story) was to adjust my writing methodology: just write until the first draft is finished. Don’t edit, don’t revise, don’t second guess, just write.
It has definitely been a challenge to not go back to edit anything I’ve written yet and this is huge for me. My analytical brain is programmed to edit, revise and rewrite before I’ve even gotten to the next scene. This time around, I’m only allowing myself to read the last few paragraphs just to recall where I left off after each break. I refuse to revise or edit until the first draft is completely written.
And then there’s the work week. Writing outside of the weekend after a long day at the office is… difficult. It is much harder to recalibrate my brain to creativity at 6:00pm, to immerse myself back into the world I’ve created, when I’ve been using an entirely different hemisphere of my brain for a large part of my day.
I am so up for the challenge this time around. I’ve allotted myself an hour each work night to sit at my computer and write. I stop at the sixty minute mark unless I have been caught up in a scene that needs to be fully scoped out first. Little steps of progress are better than none at all.
I’m motivated, I’m committed, and this story absolutely will be completed over the next few months.
My WIP (Work in Process) is now at over 38,000 words (at roughly the halfway mark!) and there are so many more words waiting to take their place among the pages.
I am still completely gobsmacked as to how my spark re-ignited, but it most definitely has.
