Re: Adjusting for Reality

NewMexicoKid
Mon, 12 Nov 2012 12:31:02 -0600

I was feeling a bit down this morning. Yesterday's word wars helped me claw my way back above the minimum wordcount graph line (back in the green!) but my word count gain rate was lower than it had been a week ago. Now, I know I'm not in Katherine's 1000 words per hour class--it takes me longer to write--but last week I was able to hit near that level. What had changed? The big difference was that, somehow, amazingly, I hadn't stopped to refer back to my plot notes. I hadn't glanced at them for an entire week. And my story had drifted off course. So far off course that I felt I had lost my connection to the story. I even toyed with the idea of doing what Katherine (Squiddish) and Joe (Corrupted Flame) had done and changed stories. I thought about that, about alternate story lines on my way to work this morning. But at lunchtime today, I went back and revisited my story outline. It's amazing what a map can do. Yes, I had introduced some new characters and events (and skipped some nice scenes) in my drifting; but it wasn't a story-ending mistake. I could still find a way to navigate back to my story track. The story elements I had plotted in October were still very compelling ones. I still had some good scenes to write. Buoyed by renewed energy, I wrote some at lunch (which I rarely do on weekdays) and am looking forward to writing more tonight.