Remember when I said...

Friday, October 31, 2008

*sigh*

*SIGH*

I'm stuck. I've written about half of chapter 2, the one that I had skipped before and now I'm stuck. I know exactly what I want to write, it's all completely outlined. It's just not coming together right when I try to type it up. I need to write up a couple small classroom scenes and a really funny scene at an ice cream shop and it would be done. I don't know why my brain is so anti-chapter 2.

I have chapter 3's rough outline done. I know the gist of what I want to happen, but not specific scenes/dialogue like I do for other chapters. I'm not terribly worried about this chapter though. It's important of course, otherwise I'd scrap it and move on. It's mostly just character development. It's just a chapter that I'm sure will all come together once I start writing it. Since the idea for it is fairly new, compared to the rest of the story, I haven't had quite as long to dwell on it.

Chapters 4, 5, and 6 are done. Probably need minor editing and tweaks as the story grows, but for the most part done.

I have felt so compelled and inspired by later chapters that I am seriously considering scrapping my plans to never skip chapters again. I know, I know... in an earlier post I said that I never ever wanted to skip chapters again, but arrrgggghhhh chapter 2 is being so difficult. Then to make matters worse, I read an interview with an author who said that they felt like they wrote better if they simply wrote whatever scenes inspired them. In the end, they tied everything together and made all the minor changes at once. They rarely dealt with writer's block and had their story done before they knew it. Bah! What to do? What to do?

Today, I spent most of the time making small changes to chapter 1 and expanding the outlines of the scenes that have me inspired. So I guess, technically, I'm not skipping ahead... just taking notes very well on those scenes... All of my outlines are very train-of-thought and, after today, very detailed. It would take very little time to write them up with how detailed they are now.

I just can't decide if I should give myself permission to try jumping around between scenes again, at least for the smaller ones that shouldn't affect other scenes very much... Like one scene I have planned that is simply Casey driving home after an interesting visit with her mother. I've been dying to write that scene since I thought it up, I think it's hilarious. And another scene that takes place in the summer at an amusement park has been jumping up and down in my brain, saying, "write me! write me!"

I'll guess I'll just have to go by trial and error on this one. I can always write up the scenes and if they don't work out once I get that far in the story, I guess I can rewrite them. At least most of the work would be done then, I'd just have to make adjustments based on how the story has changed since I wrote the scene.

Well, the little guy has fallen asleep on my lap and is making it very uncomfortable to type - so I'll stop here for today. Wish me luck battling my Writing Gremlin!

Happy Halloween!

~Willow