Fast and the Furious Check In 3
“This is how you do it: you sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It’s that easy, and that hard.” ~ Neil Gaiman
This week I’m in San Diego, where my hubby and I helped pack our youngest daughter’s stuff after her freshman year at USD. Tomorrow we’ll play and she’ll come home with us on Friday. But I managed to get some writing in and the week isn’t over yet!
How Did I Do This Week?
Let’s see where I am with regards to the fluid deadlines I talked about last week.
Like Neil Gaiman’s quote, I put a lot of words down, one after the other. Some of them helped change those colors in Scrivener from purple to white. Others were brand new scenes I didn’t know I needed until I wrote other ones.
Still in Scrivener
I’m still writing in Scrivener because I’m still figuring out the story. I’ve been 
moving scenes around And even though I still have several purple scenes (see right)—which means brand new scenes—I continue to be able to “just write.” The words are flowing so I’m taking full advantage of it!
No Perfectionists Here
I need to have this draft done by this weekend so I have time to print, review, and input changes. It’s starting to feel like NaNoWriMo again because I find myself just writing and catching myself if I start to revise on the spot to make it “sound better.” That can come later.
Just get the story down.
What I’m Learning (again)
Lesson #1. Stories evolve. I’ve always known that, experienced that. But with this deadline, I’ve had moments of discouragement and minor panic because I’m not “checking those existing purple scenes off the list” as quickly as I want to do so. Writing new (purple) scenes or revising existing (last week blue, this week yellow) scenes often has resulted in the story needing yet another (purple) scene.
DUH.
That’s the way writing works.
Lesson #2. Plotting does not take the fun or surprise out of writing. This is a fairly new lesson for me, something my plotter friends assured me was true, but I had to learn for myself during NaNoWriMo last November. And I’m learning it again with this novel. Right alongside those moments of discouragement or minor panic was also that little “jolt of joy” because the new scene that arose was often an exciting twist or “ah ha” or “Yes! That’s how it can work!” moment as well. For all I know, that happened because of the planning and plotting, not in spite of it. 🙂
I’m coming down to the last days. Next week’s update will be big. I’m determined to have excellent news.
