On Saturday night I was on a mission. The kids were in bed. The husband was out of town. It was late but I couldn't sleep. It was just me and my computer. There was no avoiding the scene from Hell I'd been avoiding for days.
But when I sat down to write it, nothing came. When I did find words I wrote then deleted, then wrote and deleted. Ugh! My ugly side, Inner Editor, was telling me all the reasons the scene wouldn't work. And every word I wrote seemed to prove Inner Editor right.
Now I know it's easier to fix a badly worded scene then it is to deal with a blank page. Still, I couldn't seem to write a darn thing without re-writing it seconds later. Back and forth. It was driving me crazy so I did what any self-respecting writer would do to drown out the voice of her inner editor.
I popped my cork.
Of Lindman's Shiraz that is lol. I know what you're thinking and, no, I do not usually sit around drinking myself into a stupor before I write. However, Saturday night it was either me or Inner Editor. I decided IE was going down! It took 2 1/5 glasses of wine (truthfully, I was probably good to go after 1 but I didn't want to take any chances). I sat down at my keyboard and flung out the 7 page scene in 90 minutes.
Now there are many days when I can't get 7 pages out of me all day long so I was pretty pleased with getting that scene done. Of course the draw back of writing a scene while you've had some wine is that you can pretty much guarantee there's going to be more then the usual amount of editing involved in the second draft. Oh well. Inner Editor can have her fun with the scene when the first draft is complete.
That was my excitement for the weekend. How about you?
5 comments:
Yea for getting it done! You must feel so much better. ;-)
The thing about avoiding a scene for so long, in my experience, is that anticipation sometimes makes the situation seem worse than it actually is.
You're right, Rachel. Anticipation definitely made it worse. I was having a tough time wrapping my head around a particular character but, in the end, I just had to fudge it until she 'spoke' to me.
Good for you! Whatever it takes. Me, a couple glasses of wine and my scene would have been my heroine taking a nap. Zzzzzzzzzzzz...........
Good work, Wendy. Sometimes the Inner Editor needs to take a chill pill and get out of the way. Sometimes, if I stay awake long enough, my IE takes a nap and I get more done without her. ;o)
Anissa, I prefaced the couple glasses of wine with a couple cups of coffee LOL.
Yes, b.e., I need to buy a huge vat of chill pills for my IE!
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