Didn’t post earlier today because I had a migraine for a large chunk of it. Makes it hard to be enthusiastic about looking at the screen for sure. (I’ve take some Excedrin and it’s helped the pain part, but I’m *awfully* jumpy right now, so I’m not sure how helpful it will be for the rest of the night.)
I did manage to do some actual brainstorming today – on paper. I’m at a bit of a crossroads with this third book, and I know it because my latest chapter is pretty much everyone just standing around and jabbering at each other. Always a sign for me that things are a little muddled plot-wise.
Characters are often like actors. Sometimes they need very little guidance. Just point them in the right direction and they’ll ad-lib themselves into greatness. Others? Not so much. You could compare being a writer like being a director, I guess. If the characters aren’t feeling the scene, then maybe I need to tell them where to go and what to say…but if *I* can’t figure that out? Then they sit there and gossip and nothing really gets done.
And sometimes writing that out is enough to loosen something. Sometimes it’s not.
So today I actually moved to regular pen and paper and started sketching things out. I start with what I know and what’s been written, along with notes of things I already know I want to change…and things I’d like to see happen and go from there. Even though I could type it out, for some reason, I find the mechanics of ink on paper to be far more organic when it comes to ideas.
I can doodle, for example – and that’s pretty freeing. Plus, for some reason I feel like I can explore more this way. It makes no sense, really, since I can just as easily erase words on the computer…but for some reason, typing it up feels like a larger commitment.
*shrugs*
Just how my brain works, I guess.
