Strapping Myself In

Woohoo! I got a great start on something new this weekend. Of course, now that I've announce it I'll jinx it, right? No. Not going to think that way. This is going to be one of those all positive approaches.

Really, I had this general idea about a story I'd like to write, and Saturday morning I woke up with the most bizarre scenario which turned out to be the perfect way to open the story. Two days later of snagging a half hour here and there to write and I have Chapter 1 - some 7,500 words - finished.

What's really cool about this story is I'm trying the pantser approach. I have a very vague idea of what the story is about, but I don't know anything specific. The details are coming out as I write, and I'm finding that I can do just a tiny bit of research to keep me moving forward (rather than spending hours at the library and lugging home 200 lbs. of books that I feel obligated to read before feeling qualified to write). Even the characters' personalities and motivations are coming to me as I go rather than requiring in-depth analyses.

It's kind of fun, and I'm trying really hard to ignore the thousand-foot high brick wall that I feel is looming over the next hill.

I never cease to be amazed at how sudden flashes of insight about a story or a character will hit me upside the head. I have one character who I've known for quite a while now, although her story isn't all the way told yet. But the other day, in the shower (yes, a shower thought), it came to me exactly why this character is afraid to fall in love. All along I'd cast her as just a party girl, not wanting to settle down. But really her fear of falling in love has more to do with her fear of being trapped in a dead-end life, the way all of her sisters have managed to do. Bizarre that this all came to me in a flash.

We writers really are worthy of some serious study. I think we are only millimeters away from being true sufferers of mental illness because we live so deeply in a reality that only exists in our own minds. How else can I explain understanding so completely a fictional character, and even more so being so thrilled when I learn something knew about her?

Truly bizarre.

Okay, I'm going to commit myself to tracking my progress on this new start. I have the momentum going and I'm scared to death if I pause at all I'll lose it. What I need to do is find out how to put one of those little WIP trackers on my sidebar. That and one of those calendars that show which days I've blogged...

Word count today: 7,513