Today was my first day writing new words in my story since I got the new computer and started importing old words in. In the meantime, I’ve gone through some serious self-doubt about the last couple of scenes I’d written on my phone – including a 5,000 word behemoth – no doubt exacerbated by being in somewhat of an editor mode during the importing phase.
I’d decided I wouldn’t touch those old scenes and would instead practice writing better scenes as I moved forward, but moving forward seemed like an even bigger hurdle for that. I’d put a lot of pressure on myself about that first scene back, and I wasn’t really sure how to approach it. So, uncharacteristically, I sat there staring at a blank screen – not even at the scene itself, but the scene card.
But last night, after I was done for the night and looking forward to a G&T along with some stupid TV to wind down the night, my wife decided instead to go study a technique for her composition work. I still had my G&T, but thinking about her this morning kicked my butt into gear. I decided what I wanted to happen in the scene and started writing it.
The purpose of this scene is to get my hero and her party from being on the run to a temporary, but unexpected safe house. Of course, now that I’ve said that, I realize that I started the scene in entirely the wrong point and that’s probably why I ended up with more introspection than I needed.
It was a solid session, but it was the wrong thing to be writing (instead of arriving at the safehouse, my hero and jester are currently waiting while the best friend gets everything set up. Stupid mistake in retrospect). I still need to learn to skip the meaningless transition scenes!