I hit the halfway point in my current WIP today. I’m feeling particularly good about this since it has been a kid-filled week. No school Monday, kid sick on Tuesday, doctors appointments (so no school) Wednesday, and early release today.
I cut back my goal slightly this week and was able to make it, and best of all (remember my little word goal addiction) I marked the weekends off, so any writing I get done then is gravy.
I so love that.
My friend Laura Drewry emailed me today saying she is in writer overload. She has been writing at an incredible pace lately. This just drains you. It’s weird that it does as much as it does, but there you have it. My suggestion was to write out of order. I do not do this very often, but sometimes you get too fixated on what is going to happen next. If you hit a rough spot you can’t get past, skipping ahead to a scene you know you will enjoy writing, or one you have thought out, can really get you rolling again. Another thing that sometimes helps me is changing POV character. This may explain why I have a lot of POV switches at times–or maybe I just feel like I do. Thing is for a scene to be easy to write there has to be tension, something to lose. (This is also what makes a scene worth reading.) If you hit a place where you are having to pull every word out of your brain, it very well may be that the point of contention in the scene has gotten lost–that the person whose brain you are in isn’t the person with the most to lose. So, voila! Switch POV characters. Works for me a lot.
In other news, tomorrow is my local chapter meeting. Our speaker is a tarot card reader who I am really looking forward to hearing. In Wild Hunt I introduce the Norn and one Norn who reads runes. I also assigned a rune to my hero–which is something this woman is going to talk about, except tarot, not runes. If I learn anything fascinating, I’ll post a report.
Then next week is Love is Murder in Chicago. A few people from here are going–my lovely friend and roommate, Kathy Steffen, Harlequin Intrigue author, Ann Voss Peterson and her mom Carol Voss, also a Harlequin author. AND my mom is going to be there. She’s also a writer and a big fan of guest speaker Tess Gerritsen. Three plus days away from laundry, settling TV channel disputes and mixing up juice cups–how will I survive?
I will miss the little snot-noses though…
