Thursday, July 13, 2006

Writing Conundrums

Last night's writing took a turn I wasn't expecting. Suddenly, my characters were in this very emotionally-intense scene. While I loved writing it, when I finished, I knew something wasn't quite right. The problem was that this emotional scene was too soon - it needed to come later.

I'm not one of those writers who can write scenes out of order and then put them all together. It doesn't work that way for me. But last night's scene was obviously not meant to be in that particular spot. While I was a bit frustrated that I had to shelve it for later, it also meant that my maturity as a writer is growing. Instead of forcing that scene to work, I knew I had to move it to later in the book. Years ago, I would have kept it in and just built around it. Fortunately, I knew what I had to do with the scene to make it work and so I cut out (and saved for later, of course) the stuff that didn't work and picked a point to start writing an entirely different scene. Unfortunately, it was 11:30 p.m. and my better judgment prevailed - the day job does require some use of brain cells and it was off to bed.

BIAW Challenge

Looks like we're all open to the possibilty of doing a BIAW here in Blogland. In fact, I think Rene and I will host it over at our writing blog, Villa in Tuscany. I think I will be rarin' to go after Nationals. Would the month of August work for everyone or should we try September? I know that no month is ideal, but if we're writers, we have to make time for our writing, right? (Guilt trip time! LOL) That's what I've learned from BIAW - that I can make time for my writing, even if it's no more than a page.

Let's take a vote. August or September?

7 comments:

  1. Anonymous9:01 AM

    I think I'm going to have to wait a bit. I'll be gone most of August and in September the school year starts. My BIAW is usually June/July. :) But I'll cheer you on!

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  2. I might be able to crawl out from under the bed by September.

    That's why I just write - if a scene happens then I write it. I'll put a space between it and the stuff I should be working on and just keep working.

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  3. September sounds good for me too :-)

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  4. Anonymous10:27 AM

    Either Aug or Sept works for me. I would love some added umph before the October conference.

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  5. August or September. I have an Oct. 15th deadline.

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  6. September should be good for me, preferably the second half. That should allow me time to finish the edit on TOB and get a jump start on one of the contemporaries.

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