Now we're getting somewhere

Well, aren't we the regular blogista this week?

I'm finding that the more I let go of my control issues - nattering questions like: What is the purpose of this scene? Where, exactly, in the book does this scene belong? Shouldn't you be developing X or Y? - the happier I am, and the more the words flow. This is a hard lesson for me, because I'm having to un-learn some fundamental habits in order to stop getting in my own way. The biggest one is efficiency.

In my daily life I'm all about making the most of my time. It's a skill I've worked hard to learn. I have many hats to wear - business owner and manager, wife, mother - and in all these areas I've learned to organize, so that I don't have to do things twice, so I don't waste my time. And so when I put on my "writer" hat, I do wear it with some awareness of the passing of time and the other things I meant to accomplish today, and so it's hard not to ask myself the questions I've listed above.

Moving the computer into the bedroom when I'm writing has been a huge improvement, (how many times have I thanked you for that little pearl, Lindsay?) because it signifies to me on some subconscious level that I Am Writing Now. I'm learning to sip something hot from my favourite mug, take a deep breath...and RELAX. In that frame of mind it becomes much easier to merely listen and type, and lo! Suddenly a thousand words a day is no major thang. Suddenly it becomes possible that I might finish telling this story before I get bored of it. Suddenly I am less bored of it anyway, because things are going off in their own directions, instead of being crammed into my carefully crafted notion of the story.

Funny, I have to stop trying to get somewhere, in order to get somewhere.