Has it been a month already? March felt like it took six years but April took about three days. So which plague comes after the murder hornets? Don't remember that part in the Bible...
This month's optional question from the IWSG is: Do you have any rituals that you use when you need help getting into the ZONE? Care to share?
I've probably mentioned this before, but I've always been very in tune with my characters, and my routines to get into the WRITING ZONE, if you will, usually have to do with them. Listening to music has always been a way to get in the zone for me, but even moreso now because Jordan is a musician. I actually realized that lately I haven't been listening to music (since that happened mostly at the gym and the gym is closed), and my desire to write was pretty much zero. I started listening again and my urge to write has slowly been creeping back. The muse is fickle.
Anyhoo, I've been trying really hard to at least WORK on writing, if not ACTUAL writing. I'll probably have to explain that. I've added to my daily checklist of goals to work on writing for at least a half hour. But this doesn't necessarily mean I have to be writing. It could be editing, making lists of things to eventually fix, brainstorming ideas in my journal. It just has to be writing related. So far I've been sticking to it every day.
This past weekend I spent a lot of time writing in my journal. I really like taking a basic idea that I feel I haven't gotten quite right or needs more exploration and just letting my thoughts run free until I've figured it all out. I kid you not, I wrote NINE pages exploring the symbolism of Jordan's phone. You'd think, well, all teens have phones, right? Haha WRONG. It's actually symbolic of not only his secret keeping, but also the isolation he forces on himself.
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| Literally titled "phone stuff" |
It's ok, you can tell me I'm insane.
All this brainstorming has also read to some mini-revelations. Basically certain parts in the story where I think I can do better. Every time I think of something, I jot it down in a separate journal where I've basically laid out (or am in the process of laying out) all of my editing and rewriting goals. I've already got HUGE lists for rewriting Chapter 1 (because is a first chapter ever really finished?) and Chapter 27 (because it's a trash fire).
And maybe at some point I will actually write the last two chapters of the book. But I'm hoping that by getting all of this other stuff done, not only will I feel more accomplished, but maybe the ending will become clearer.
