Managed to work on my story everyday this week even though it was our 20th wedding anniversary and we went away overnight on Wednesday. For the first time I didn’t bring a notebook or journal or any writing supplies and that felt a little strange. Like I was missing a part of me.
The story is coming along. I wrote the end of one scene and knew it wasn’t right. It felt too precious. Sentimental. So I went back in and slowed down and hit upon something that I am now trailing to see where it leads me. Where it leads the story.
I’d like to take a day this weekend to go to the coffee shop and just freewrite for a couple of hours. I like to do that on a fairly regular basis. It balances the side of me that is working on producing a story, ultimately for publication. It keeps my mind nimble, free and loose which then bleeds into the writing of fiction. It’s fun. It allows me to just immerse myself in the writing process and hopefully that will also bleed into the rest of my writing.
“Too precious” – I run into that too a lot, and that’s a good way to phrase that problem.
Update please! 🙂 How’s your writing going lately? Are you still working on that novel with the little boy and the dad who died?
Good point about freewriting. I usually don’t do it — I’m always cracking the whip at myself, like I have to work on only what I’ll allow myself to be officially working on… wow, I sound pretty annoying. Anyway, I went to a writing workshop this summer and we had nightly freewriting assignments. It had been so long since I’d let myself go and write whatever came out without looking back. And by hand, which at first felt like I was trying to compose in a foreign language. The process knocked something loose in my head… the freewriting felt, you guessed it, freeing.
Your post just reminded me that I should try and keep at it. You never know what may come out!
L- Hmmm… update…. writing is non-existent. I love that novel but am trying to finish the linked stories and it feels like I am grinding metal against metal with this project. Trying to figure out when I need to just let it go and when I need to dig in and try harder.
N- I love going to workshops and getting thrown things like nightly freewriting that I don’t normally do. It shakes things up. I wish I could bottle all the creative energy generated at these workshops so I could take a sip now and then when I hit a black hole in my own creativity at home.