I didn’t finish writing the first draft of It Begins. (BTW, I’ve come to despise that title, even for a working doc. It was always meant to be short-termed. I keep waiting for the real thing to pop up.)

Disgust, anger, irritation, and frustration all stopped me from finishing the first draft. This wasn’t working, it wasn’t what I’d envisioned (or anywhere near it) and more, it wasn’t satisfying, winning a prolonged grrrrr from deep in my throat.

WTH and WTF? I kept trying to write around the issue. What was it disturbing me? Didn’t like that beginning, so I added shit. Didn’t like that, so I took it away again. Rearranged chapters. Deleted story lines.

None hit the magic g-spot. Exasperation hounded me like a hungry cat. Finally, and at last, as I was in the bathroom, a huge freakin’ epiphany struck.

First, I want to note that a much of my best epiphanies arrive in the morning while I’m doing my washing, shaving, and dressing. I think that’s because the tedium of routine permits my brain to enter a prolonged idle. The stream of thought calms and new items percolate in.

The second strike of intrigue came as I walked, thought, and then started writing. The epiphany showed me that I was pursuing the wrong tack. But as I reviewed what I’d written in the first takes compared to what I thought that I was writing about, it seemed that my subconscious (through the vessels called muses) was pursuing the correct direction while my conscious mind slaved in the wrong direction.

I’d been thinking that I needed clarity. That’s what I’d been hunting, not a problem with the writing, but clarity about the story that I was trying to tell. Now it feels like clarity has been found.

Hope so, but you know, like many things, a victory is achieved on one day, but the same work is required on another. Which was what I think all my writing efforts demonstrated: I knew something was off, and tried writing through it to a solution. In a roundabout way, that’s what happened as the effort helped my thought process. Guess that’s what fiction writing is about, in the end.

Once my clarify was delivered, I felt like I was suddenly shifting into a new, unknown writing gear. Not surprising, right? That’s what happens when you overcome an obstacle.

Done writing like crazy for the day. Off to other adventures. Cheers