Slippery

Odil is a wily one. Yesterday, I wrote out two pages in long hand. (I have really tiny writing--comes from all those years hunched over a drafting board printing dimensions out in 1/8th scale--so it was quite a bit of writing.) I *thought* I'd made good progress with him (in his pov) touched upon some background stuff, and hinted at other things that he feared in himself (by extension planting the seeds in the reader's mind that Zoe also had to fear).

But when I opened up the ole wip (work in progress) not one word of those two hand-written pages made it into the document. There I was again, feeling around. Deleting, rearranging and fleshing out. I HATE this part of the process. This blindly feeling around in the dark--each word or phrase telling me if I'm getting 'hotter' or 'colder', but only after I've written them. ::groooaaaan.::

No use telling me to push forward, etc. At this stage of the game I have a fair understanding of the process of *how* I write. This is necessary. It's a 'Do not collect $200. Do not pass go' stage that I have to explore for the rest of the book to fall in place. Even if I had detailed outline, I'd still have to deal with this crap. But at least what got typed today, stays. It feels right. I'm peeling back the layers of the onion that is Odil, gg, and weaving in the threads of subplot. Now that I think about it, there's stuff in the notebook that I can use later.

Not sure how much I'm going to get done this week, with Toxic (expletive)Coworker on vacation, and my Aunt Cherry visiting. I guess I'll keep doodling in the note book, and see what happens. Other writers hate the 'sagging middle' or have trouble wrapping things up. But the beginings (first 3 chapters at least) are always the bitch for me.