Thursday, March 13, 2008

Six at One Blow

Okay, so the brave little tailor actually killed seven flies with one blow, but the concept's the same. I knocked off six pages during the wee hours last night and finished the entire first scene of Chapter 15. Then I paid for it by sleeping all day. It was worth it, though. Some scenes come in bits and pieces, fits and starts of maybe a hundred or so words each. Those, I have to go through later and groom to make sure they flow the way they should. But the ones I really love are the ones that just use me to get themselves written. I start writing, and the story flows through my fingers, and the next thing I know, it's two or three hours later and the scene is complete from beginning to end, in one seamless whole. It's the holy grail for writers--being "in flow." Time just seems to stop, and magic happens. This experience is what keeps me writing and give me the impetus to go on even through the fits-and-starts kinds of scenes--the promise that sooner or later, the muse will strike and there'll be a flow scene to balance things out.

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