I’m up to chapter five on book three, and I’ve hit one of those plot points where I’m discovering what is going to happen as I write it. For me, this is both good and bad. The good is that it makes the work exciting. That process of discovery is one of my favorite aspects of writing a novel. The bad is that each night when I sit down to write at a point like this where I truly don’t know what is going to happen, I get filled with anxiety that maybe this will be the night when the well has run dry. I am confident enough in my process that I believe the story will unfold as it should and that I will find the right words and the right rhythm and the right pacing, but the anxiety is still there each night.
Chapter four was a different story, pardon the pun. I knew what was going to happen from beginning to end. There was a little discovery of details, but I knew the basic plot, so each night when I sat down and started my process, there was very little anxiety. All I had to do was sit down and concentrate on where I was in the chapter, where each scene needs to end, and what details needed to be focused on. It’s not as exciting, but it’s a lot less stressful.
So that’s a little about my writing process. Later tonight, if you have some insomnia, remember to come back and read this post. You’ll be in dreamland in no time.
Big Owl's Tree 