I’m pounding the rock, you know?

Maintainin’.

Chillin’.

Keeping it real. Staying cool.

Tuning out distractions.

Focusing.

Staying the course.

That’s what’s needed sometimes. Sometimes it’s not a piece of cake, a day at the office, easy come, easy go. Sometimes the words are cold iron on the anvil. It’s like rowing up stream. Pushing a boulder up a mountain. One step forward, two steps back.

But I’m going the distance. The whole nine yards.

The whole shebang.

Playing for keeps.

I got my eye set on the prize. I’m ready to seize the brass ring.

I’m not just making promises. I’m here for the long haul.

All this comes, not from reading sports and political news, but from getting beached in a chapter. My head screams, “You’ve lost the plot,” but my tail shouts, “Stay the course.” I’m at a point where I need to go or get off the pot, know what I’m saying? I need to make the opportunities count.

So, after drifting through a QSM and an one point five hours of writing time, and editing, revising and polishing the chapter in progress to the point where I’m trapped, a decision is finally accepted.

It ain’t happening today.

Accepted, with a deep breath. The breath is not of relief nor regret, but simple acceptance that I want to move forward and I need some way around this obstacle.

So —

I write a note at the break: <TK: Bridge required.> That’s highlighted in yellow so I don’t overlook it. I use the <TK> format for convenience for anything that needs addressing. I write like crazy. In essence, that means that while I’m mildly mindful, I’m more interested in capturing lightning in a bottle and writing down the bones. I basically don’t want to be slowed down at that point, so I’ll set it up to be done later. Sometimes it’s research, or the scene needs to be cleaned up for clarification, pacing or continuity. Once in a while, I can’t remember a minor character’s name or someone’s hair color, or other small detail that I think I want to include. I put a note beginning with <TK and explain why it’s there. I also date these entries. Then, when the first draft is finished, I search for <TK, find them and fix them. I’ve usually fixed them before the first draft is completed because I hunt back and forth through the manuscript as I work, tearing out cliches and passive writing, looking for sharper and crisper descriptions, expanding on and subtracting from passages to better fit the narrative that has emerged and to accommodate the characters’ arcs. That’s necessary because my vision of the narrative changes as the story clarifies and evolves. As Bob Muslim noted in his post, “Edit Mode, Anyone?”, “As I write and the story comes alive, things change.” Right on.

This point today is a weird misery for me. A failure. It’s not the first time it’s happened but it’s not common. I don’t care if it happens to everyone, either. It’s personal.

I’ve been fortunate to be able to dial up a scene’s framework, sit down and beginning hammering it out, then shaping and re-shaping it later. It’s not always been that way, but this is what comes from establishing a discipline of writing, writing, writing, writing. Naturally, that’s what I attempted to do today — and yesterday, actually.

Some of this obstacle today is from impatience. I know how other scenes and action spreads out. They excite me, and I’m eager to get to it because that’s the fun part of fiction writing. This writing slowdown is also caused by real life bleedover. Personal matters, issues and problems arose that absorbed time, energy and thought, leaving the writer a little depleted in those areas. Hence the mock pep talk of cliches that began this post.

The thing about these moments is to not let them consume me. Andrea Lundgren had a post, “Do You Write Chronologically?” over on Ryan Lanz’s site, “A Writer’s Path” (which I highly recommend). Overall, I’m comfortable with jumping out of chronological sequence (especially in this novel, which has a, ahem, interesting chronological pattern). I think of it like other projects, like painting a room. The order that I write is only important as part of completing the entire project to my satisfaction.

Yet, yet, it’s not easy to decide, sometimes, to jump out of order. And this is because this scene is not quite coming to me, not in its entirety. And that vexes me.

So, let it go, for now. Let it go. Come back to it later. Maybe later, by the time the entire novel is completed, this scene will be overcome by events and therefore unnecessary. Maybe, even now, I know that, but I’m too intimate with it to say good-bye.

Whatever. When you’re given lemons, you make lemonade.

Or so I’ve been told.