I sit here staring at the screen with little in my head but when it can hit the pillow and end today. For weeks now I have been working on an outline of scene for the second novel of my Raven/Wolf series. I have one first draft that no long syncs with how I have improved my original story.
I have scenes I love and great chemistry between my characters. Despite enthusiasm and praise it has received from those with whom I have shared portions of it, I find the narrative sprawling and lacking direction. The mood is still intact and my characters are more or less behaving as I expect them to, the plot is thin and lacking in subtext.
I have listened to music, watched movies and read other books for inspiration. Nothing. Now at 9 p.m. and barely able to keep my eyes open-voila! It hits me. The entire outline came to me in like three minutes. It now sits on in front of me, written on the back of a discarded print out in red sharpie. I am a little whew that was a good sniff, about the smell coming off the page.
I couldn't even write it in a linear form. My points run diagonal and side was with arrows crossing over one another. I have my villains, my surprise twist, my cliff hangers for all my heroes, a noble sacrifice and a painful compromise.
What can I say? Sometimes your best work and only solutions come from mind numbing exhaustion. Sorry for typos and run on sentences that I know must pepper the preceding. You can expect me to unblock and punctuate on 4 hours of sleep a night. But I promise you will love the prose.
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