Today at the Writing Desk

Things didn’t start altogether well at the writing desk today, but I thought I’d give you a glimpse at how the writing goes sometimes. I took the following from my PreWriting Journal. I generally do a brain dump, then steer towards the story-in-progress. It is frequently more help than I want to admit, which is kind of silly and self-defeating, eh? I mean, “Do the thing that makes the word car zoom, Robin.”

This is What Happens at the Writing Desk

All righty. I’m supposed to be writing real words. In a real book. Instead, I’ve written in my journal. I’ve written a brief response in chat to Kristie. I’ve written even more briefly on Twitter. The writing chunks are getting smaller rather than larger. This is not a good sign.

I’ve checked all the social media, but I’ve managed to avoid my mailbox.

I want to say I stayed up writing too long last night after I putting Hubby to bed, but I didn’t. Too tired lately. I just want to sleep all the time. Could possibly be related to having been sick. It is annoying that I get my most words written at that hour of the day. Even more annoying that, if I’m going to write more words at night, old age—and, yes, probably stress and grief and general malaise—are slowing me down. It used to be that once I got going (at night, of course, horrible time to start writing), I could really work up some steam. I could write until 2 or 3 AM. Now I’m lucky if I can keep my peepers open until midnight, and BOY do I suffer the next day. So, in general, I’ve been trying to keep the dark hour write-a-thon to “before 11PM.”

I have such a hard time writing during the day when Hubby is awake and the television is on. All. Day. Every. Day.

I don’t know why I can’t focus, except that “the flow” is liable to be interrupted at any moment. Not Hubby’s fault, particularly. It’s MY problem. This huge mental block sitting on my brain road, and I can’t figure out how to make the word car go around it. No zoom. Mostly, I just sit in the car seat and stare at the blank wall looming in front of me.

So this is me, getting out of the word car and casting about for a way to perhaps wiggle through on an edge somewhere. And I envision the mountain falling on Kai, and he is so afraid his people will not get out of the caverns in time. He must slow to rescue someone, and it costs him. Oh, how it costs him… The someone is saved, but the mountain tries to consume Kai. It takes his legs.

Only I’m not supposed to be fiddling with Kai’s story! I’m writing CROW’s story. Pay attention, word suit!

I had to put on a word suit since the word car was too unwieldy for driving through a boulder.

Crow, or rather Tanris, now has the message from the emperor to get himself–themselves?—back to Marketh. So right off, I’m stuck. Do I do some cross-country tromping? That sounds boring, and my first instinct is to ditch it. But would it be a good place to better introduce KipKap and his brother? Reintroduce Girl?

I think I explain too much. Tell too many things straight out when they ought to be strung out little by little, allegedly coaxing the reader along.

Okay, so yeah, skip the tromping.

Go straight to the meeting with the emperor.

Next question: Does Girl accompany them?

Big blank, staring at the boulder.

Why would she not? Shy? She is, but this is a big opportunity. Chance of a lifetime. Meet the emperor? Heck yeah! “I’ll be quiet,” she signs. Crow would think it’s funny. Tanris might roll his eyes. But really, what can it hurt?

Okay, then, Girl comes along.

Next up is KipKap. He’s followed them. Naturally, Diti followed KipKap.

You can’t see it, but there’s this word counter at the bottom of my window, and I’ve written 662 words non-stop in this pre-writing sprint. No sweat. Three seconds staring at the boulder. (The boulder needs a better name. I mean, the writing process gets “word car” and “word suit.” The boulder is getting cheated. Digression, anyone?)

You can read about Crow’s first adventure HERE.

And Kai’s adventure HERE.

Back to the writing desk for me!

~  ~  ~  ~  ~

There you have it: How Robin pushes the word car until it magically turns into a suit and she takes off jogging.

How do you get going when you’re stuck?