The Writing Moment
Every day for the last seven, I’ve sat down to write thinking, is this the day this novel’s first rough draft is finished? Then I write like crazy, and no, ‘The End’, is not found. I know the end but I’m a pantser. The territory between the beginning and end is a dark continent. I work my way across it to ‘The End’ with only vague navigational markers about where I need to go to get there. I set down ground rules but the characters and muses drive the novel.
That’s the way I like it.
Monday’s Wandering Thought
A customer was ahead of him in the coffee shop. As he waited for his turn, he began writing in his head. Phantom writing, some call it. The main character had apparently awakened and had a lot to say about who he was and what was going on.
“Hi, what can I get for you?” the barista asked.
Panic. Where was he? Oh, yeah, coffee shop. What did he want? Coffee! He stammered out his order and then apologized, explaining, “Sorry, I was off in another world.”
That comment cracked him up.
Wonder if the baristas think him a little odd?
Michael Seidel, writer 