Oh man, Susan, is it ever okay to write a shitty first draft.

It's just frustrating. I usually don't have this much trouble even getting close to what I'm looking for. I'm just plowing through and making notes to myself about what I want the scene to accomplish so I'll know how to edit it. And what really sucks is this is coming just days after I was totally in the zone. I changed POV characters--a totally necessary change, I think--and the whole thing ground to a screeching halt on me and has been limping along ever since. And I don't even think it's that I don't understand the character or anything. It's just not working.

Well, leave those notes and let the scene simmer until you can attack it later in a few days. Some time away can work wonders.

Not really a big believer in time away. Not in cases like this, anyway. Time away makes a rusty writer. It's not like I'm dealing with writer's block or stress in other parts of my life. It's just a tough scene, and I feel like all I'm putting down is the bare skeleton of what happens. I'm going to have to layer in everything else--the emotion, the sensory details, everything. And I'm not good at that kind of editing. But I need to learn.

What about this? It sounds like you were "in the zone" writing from another character's POV. Can you continue the story in the POV you're working well in, and come back to this difficult part later on? You may fall into that character's POV more naturally at a different part in the story, and while "inhabiting" that character this tough scene may not be as tough. Just a thought.

Well, I'm almost done with the scene now. I think I'm going to push through tonight, rough as it is, until I get to the end. Tomorrow I doubt I'll get to even look at it till late at night--we're having company for dinner, so there's a house to clean, and I have a potluck with my RWA chapter for lunch. Hopefully with 24 hours rest I can start building in what needs to be there. And if past experience is any guide, it's probably not so horrible and soulless as I think it is.

Whew. Done. And I think I actually hit some decent notes toward the end. Now I'll give myself a break until I start typing it in tomorrow after dinner.

Arrrgghh.

I have been working on and off on the same essay for the last two weeks. It just won't quite come together, and it's making me batty.

thump thump thump

Aw, man. So BTDT. Spent money I didn't have at the bookstore again. I mention this here because I bought some more mysteries by my Secret Literary Boyfriend who's teaching me to write mysteries whether he knows it or not.

Working on editing this essay for possible publication and let it be known that I'm a terrible emdasher in the worst--or I would argue best--way possible. In my non fiction if I'm clobbering a point, I like to clobber right down to the form of the sentence itself. Prof who suggested it, thinks I should go the semi colon route, but I don't know... Are emdashes really that evil? Is a complex-compound sentences broken down into simple sentences really better writing? I mean, Dickens, he was writing fiction and his run-ons are beloved by all, non?