For chapter six I’ve written just over 800 words that I’m really happy with. It only took about an hour or so of writing to get them out and get them down, but it took nearly two weeks of thinking about it before that. Also, before I began to write I added to notes for the chapter development, revisited the chapter notes to the previous chapter and began a new file to charter the theme, imagery, and character development of the protagonist throughout all chapters. All that along with the angst that accompanies bouts of not writing, the guilt that underpins it and the self-involved dramatization of sense of purpose. My mind has been busy even if my hands haven’t been busy banging out the words on my keyboard.
Introspection has been a necessary evil to keep my headspace aligned with the protagonist as they too have been traversing their sense of self and coming to terms with their progress through life. My navel-gazing then has been of value in this respect. At the top of my list for honouring my process and progress is to mindfully observe myself, where I’m at and how I can integrate my human experience best into my creative experience.
With all of that in mind I sat myself down today and wrote. My approach was ‘don’t leave the room’ aka Limitless style. I found it hard to get started which is why I wrote notes. I’d been thinking about the notes I added for the past couple of weeks, so it was good to get them down and make space in my head for other words and ideas. Once I had the notes in order I had a clear picture in mind of where I am up too in the story and wanted to get writing.
I wrote about 300 words and stared disappointedly at the word count as I was certain that was all that I had in me. One good thing about that thought though is that I am often wrong so it became easy to ignore. I read over my 300 words and added more that needed to be there. The word count grew with the image of the scene in my mind, each word I wrote contributed to the clarity of my vision as the scene came into focus. The other side of the 300 words flowed out of me as I more than doubled the wordcount to write the opening of the first draft of chapter six.