Then Again

I didn’t know what I was going to write today. I knew I had a scene in progress. In theory, there was another scene ahead. With it in mind, I was puzzling around what do I write today to get there, and considered just jumping ahead to write that scene.

That didn’t feel right to my instincts, though, so I sat down, and started typing from where the last sentence left off. Once again, I went off in an unanticipated, unexpected direction. When, twenty pages later, I finished the scene and stopped, I was pleased and touched by what had happened. It was so in character with the series and novel in progress. I hadn’t planned it; the characters and muse seemed in control. Intellectually, I know, it must be me, right? I’m the one with the brain behind the skull and fingers on the keyboard, but the writing had that dreamlike flow, as if I was a pipe and it was just being pumped through me.

It’s unnerving, honestly, because I wonder if I’m not a little crazy. (Okay, I concede that I’m a little crazy; I suppose what’s in question is how crazy I might be.) I like what I wrote, and I worry that others won’t like it. Then again, I don’t care. Some readers won’t; some readers will. The words are out there as part of the record, subject to the editing and revising processes just like everything else.

Now — amazing, I’ve been here for over two and half hours. My rear end is in pain from sitting. I still have coffee in that twelve ounce mug. An oily film covers the coffee’s cold surface.

Time to drink up, mask up, and call it done for another day of writing like crazy.