Weekly Update: October 15 to 21st

Weekly word count: 3150 at home and 4700 for first full day of writer's retreat

As I write this, I am in Isle of Palms (which is near Charleston, South Carolina), in a gorgeous beach house, listening to the waves from the beach which is right at our back door.  I'm saying this not to be a "Hahaha, you suckers back in Canada with your cold weather" kind of bitch, but because next week I'll be back in Canada with the cold weather and tons of responsibilities and this is all going to feel like a dream that didn't really quite happen.  So I need to document it while it is happening to remind myself that it was real, at least for a little while.

I decided to try a new tack for writing last week, inspired by a very vivid dream that involved David Tennant and a lake with the sun setting behind it.  (Not that kind of dream.  I'm honestly offended that you think I would go there... and not be up front about it.)  It was just a powerful emotional moment and in that moment, I *knew* what had led up to it and what would happen after.

Sometimes when I wake up from those types of dreams, I'm all excited because I think I've got a brilliant story idea now and it just dropped out of the sky into my head, fully plotted and ready to go.  And then I take the time to actually look at my brilliance and realize it's not quite as good as my subconscious brain thought (that side of myself is enthusiastic but not always coherent) or that it's actually a plot that I saw on Buffy, or Star Trek, or something else.

This one might have the potential to be something more some day, but right now it doesn't fit in with either the lalassu or with the companion series I'm working on.  Usually this would mean I would take copious notes and then store it in the wistful "Someday" bin of ideas.    But I'd been having a hard time working on Judgment in the evenings, despite being eager to get on with telling the story, so I decided to give myself some slack and allow myself to explore this idea.  Not worry about the writing or the story being good, but just exploring the emotionality of the moment.

And three days later, I had 3150 words.  I'm not quite sure what to do with that information, other than maybe recognize that I'm under more pressure than I thought, including the pressure of getting Judgment ready.  So maybe I needed some consequence free writing time to get the pump primed.

Either way, once we got settled into the beach house, the words have been flowing much easier.  It's only been one day and I've already written more than I did in the previous two weeks combined.  If I can avoid the temptation to just goof off and socialize, I could make some real progress here.  And if I can keep up the momentum, then maybe I'll meet my goals for Nanorimo too.

And maybe I also need to remember that if that doesn't happen, that's also okay.