Just Keep Swimming

I had a massive word count today. Almost 5,000, which is huge for me. I normally write two or three really good paragraphs and then falter, fall apart, or smack into that theoretical brick wall. For some reason, I've always thought that I need to have an entire chapter completely planned out before I can sit down and write it.

Today, I decided to buck tradition.  I sat down to write a chapter without really knowing where I was going with it. I have a very simple, rough outline of my entire book, but nothing concrete so I run into a lot of places where I'm wondering what to do with my characters. Well guess what I discovered - sometimes, if you just keep the pen moving, the characters themselves will tell you where they want to go. It's like Dori says in Finding Nemo, "Just Keep Swimming. Just Keep Swimming," only I've changed the words to,"Just keep writing. Just keep writing."

    

As I continued I found out that not only were my characters telling me what to do with them, they were also growing and evolving before my very eyes. I learned a great deal about my protagonist today that I didn't know before. I felt as if she were tapping me on my shoulder and saying, "Lady, you've got me all wrong. I would never do that. Here's how I would react in this situation."

Taking a moment to listen and trusting my pen were all that it took and pretty soon my hand was cramping and I felt as though it couldn't keep up with all the thoughts in my head.

So, lesson learned. When the going get's tough? Just. Keep. Writing.

Happy Writing