Today I used my scene plan guide again to create and shape more scenes for my novel. Yesterday I wrote 5K in a morning. I have a feeling that depleted my resources. This is an observation, not a wish that I hadn’t written a lot on Monday. I also realised (again) that I haven’t been exercising enough – feeling sluggish is not good for writing.
Anyway, it felt like more of a struggle today and the “your writing is rubbish” voice was pretty strong. I had to do it anyway of course. That’s the key – hear the voice but don’t listen to it. Turn up and write anyway. I wrote one scene and rewrote another couple of short scenes from 2015. Sometimes what I’ve called 1 scene in my scene plan guide translates into two scenes – that’s the sort of thing I’m working out as I go along – but it made progress seem slow.
My wife showed me a quotation from Margaret Atwood over lunch saying that to be a writer you have to be an optimist – perhaps fantasist would be a better word – but it was a good thing to read. It’s funny how she says it takes more than a couple of cups of coffee.
Rewriting stuff from a while back can bring out a despondent streak in me, too. Once more, the scene plan guide let me know what I wanted to achieve in each scene so that even if I still have questions, I could check whether I’ve reached that objective. That might sound dictatorial, but because I used a gentle voice in the plan, it’s like I have a wise friend (me!) to guide me advice as I work through the process.
In the afternoon I worked on my website – new theme and ‘about me’ page. Why do these things take so long? I was deliberately not writing in the couple of hours I had before picking up the small boy because the scenes I wrote in the morning were enough – those people who say 4 hours writing time is optimal have probably got it right.