Eureka…?

After weeks and weeks of getting nowhere with this book, I think I have finally figured out what I need to do. I’m very excited about this, since I was about to throw in the towel and start learning how to write again from Square 1. It’s going to require some replumbing of the current draft, but I don’t think I have to start it over from scratch. The week ahead should be a relatively quiet one, so I look forward to figuring out a plan finally.

(The problem is with the antagonist. I have a terrible time with those, which is a vexing situation for a genre writer. And, I am mildly chagrined and equally amused to say, the solution involves me following advice I have sagely dispensed to others in the past. There’s nothing like art to keep one humble.)

This past week I have been experimenting with the popular “morning pages” practice. I am not sure whether or not I can credit that with this morning’s breakthrough, or if it’s just that I am finally over the Cold from Hell, or that things needed to simmer and sort themselves out in my subconscious for exactly this long before the issue surfaced. I am going to keep up with the pages for a bit longer, and see what happens. They do eat up a fair amount of time, but the experience of writing longhand is meditative.

Long-range goals remain elusive, but I continue to put out feelers while I try to determine what it is that I am looking for. In the meantime, I’m going to finish this book!