Writers, do you ever do that thing where you start writing at some random point in your story because you’re feeling it, and it’s the fun and exciting part, only to realize there’s not an organic way to actually get there, so now you have to re-write everything you wrote? Asking for a friend, of course.

Seriously though, after five completed projects, you’d think I’d just start plotting. I say I will and then some exciting epiphany of a scene won’t be ignored and I find I have 15,000 words of a book that hasn’t really come out of the idea phase. It’s possible I just spent the last three days re-working the front quarter of my current project because of this. I just really, really, really wanted the story to get to this specific place, but it just couldn’t. It wouldn’t. Not without being forced. Because it was forced, and you (I) could definitely tell.

I did a lot of sitting and staring. A lot of but what if I did this… Eventually, I had to accept that it wasn’t happening. These characters do write themselves and my simple-mindedness was not smart enough to outwork them. It just means a little patience (okay, a lot of patience) and some extra work. I’ll get to that point I really, really want to show. It’s just going to take a few more (many) pages. And who knows, maybe when I get there for real, there will be an entirely new place there.