Hi Ho!

it’s back to work I go!

So, after such a wonderful awesome weekend of music and community and fabulous-ness, I spent today catching up on the work I actually get paid to do. That’s not a bad thing. It was nice to have some me-time, to put in my earbuds and listen to music on Pandora while typing up minutes. I’ve also been working on my book today, which I didn’t have time to do over the weekend. I worked on a really emotional, introspective scene today, which has been a little draining.

I find those kinds of scenes hardest to write and to rewrite, because with the scenes rooted in emotion you really have to take your time to become the character, to sink inside their skin and feel what they feel. It takes a lot of time and quietness. I find it also helps if I’m physically comfortable and if I keep very still.

Rewriting these scenes is even harder than writing them because I have to return to that emotional place which can be harder to do the second or third time around than it was the first time. I have a hard time writing emotional scenes, perhaps because I have to make sure I’m at a good place in my own mind before I go delving into someone else’s. I frequently come out of an emotional writing session feeling off balance. Taking a walk afterwards helps, or working out, going swimming is the best when I can just float in the river staring up at the sky, ears underwater. I find that most centering.

I can write a battle scene in an hour or sometimes less. It’s not that there’s no emotion in battle scenes, but those emotions for most of my characters are slimmed down to “what’s it going to take to survive?” Those are pure, simple emotions. It’s what happens in the aftermath that’s a mess. But I think the scene I’m working on write now is shaping up nicely. It’s take a little more tweaking, but it’s coming along. In the end I think it’ll be a good scene.

Well, that’s what I’ve been doing today: quiet work, but I feel like each letter I put down brings me closer to the next chapter in my life.

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