So it is Saturday morning, and I have been up for almost two hours and have accomplished nothing more than chasing my snow covered dog through the house, and making a really bad bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. I am supposed to be writing, finishing this god forsaken short story so that it can be critiqued by my writing group next week. I was doing very well, until about Thursday, and since then each sentence has been a struggle. It feels kind of like pulling out deeply embedded splinters from some awkward part of your body, like the back side of your arm, where you only have one hand to work with and no matter what angle you twist and turn you cannot see enough to know what you're doing. It's like that. Only never ending.
Don't get me wrong. I like writing, if I didn't this painful process would not be worth it. But it is never as easy as it looks. Why is it that in most cases, the act of being good at something means making it appear to be effortless?
Anyway, my story has halted because I am not really sure where it needs to go. Or more accurately I am afraid to travel down the wrong path, only to find out ten pages later that none of this should have happened. It will be evident because the characters will scream it out to me. They will fight every step I make, they will resist every word I put into their mouths. Of course this means that the problem with my story has already occurred. That the reason I am at a stalemate now, is because I took a wrong turn days ago. But I suspect that is not entirely the case. I think part of me is getting a little performance anxiety. This is it, act three, the big climax, the ultimate payoff, and I have know idea what the hell is supposed to happen. How do I get from point C to Z without choking? I wonder if Viagra has considered making a product for writers?
