Sorry I'm a little late but...

... I've been writing. That's right. WRITING!!! After so many weeks and months of stopping and starting, of forcing myself through bouts of horrifying self-doubt and Itotallysuckitis, I had today what felt like my best writing day since I started this book oh so many months ago -- and it sprung out of total, rock-bottom suckage!

For a few days, I've been struggling through a scene that's my least favorite kind. A transitional scene -- basically that scene where the main character is doing some lame thing that you hate writing about because it's so damn boring and seemingly irrelevent when all of a sudden a lightbulb goes off in her head and she's spurred into action. I was having a hell of a time with it. Basically, I just needed something to get Brenna from point G to point H, but I couldn't find it. Anywhere. So I woke up this morning expecting another craptastic day of terrifyingly bad writing when... Well it's sort of like pushing a car. You're putting your whole weight into it and nothing is happening, but then there's that moment where it just gives -- and you're rolling. Well that's what happened to me. For the first time in forever, I wrote a scene that felt like it was writing itself, and then that brick wall I've been hitting kind of crumbled and I saw the path that leads to the end of the book.

I love this feeling. It's so rare, but it reminds me of why I wanted to write in the first place -- that creative rush, where it seems like everything is falling into place. A friend of mine calls in "book sex," and though that may be overselling it, I do agree that it's a really, really good time.

So I'm gonna get back to it. But first, I'd like to ask -- have any of you had this feeling recently? And if so, what got you there?

Comments

[Lori Armstrong]

No, Alison, I'm not there yet on this book, and thanks for making me feel like shit.

Kidding.

I'm happy it's going well for you. I hope to be able to say the same thing for me...soon.

[Jeff Shelby]

I am still pushing the car at the moment and it is not budging...

[J. Carson Black]

I love that feeling, Alison! On my most recent book, I had the experience a lot, and I think it was because I would think about what would come next, then let it simmer for a day or so, and then when I wrote it was like automatic writing. Of course, I've had plenty of the other kind, where I wrote large swaths that I had to tear out and write something completely different. But when that feeling happens--when it just comes pouring out--there's no greater reward in the writing world.