And what have I learned? That my vocabulary is stunted at best when i’m commiting thoughts to paper while writing in the moment. I have to rewrite entire sentences and sometimes paragraphs because that epic word on the tip of my tongue can’t be found and the flow is off without that very specific turn of phrase. Only to later come up with it and have to back track and edit that section a third time. Also the thought of having to slog through an action / dialogue/ detail heavy portion of my story will stop me clean in my tracks and I will put the writing off until later in the day, or settle for a silly inane blog post with a photo instead.
Book two is closing in on 10,000 words so I am thankful for that. I do worry that I am retreading too much old ground, or that I aim to throw in plot twists or subvert tropes for the general sake of doing so. I do believe that 2020 was a very depressing and isolating year, and as such my writing had more gravitas behind it. Feels like I’m chasing a feeling rather than excising something deep from within. In all honesty it took me such a long time to find a suitable thread to follow for the second portion of short stories in my overarching series that I think I might just be nervous it’s not as exciting or as enjoyable as the first book.
Something else that I have had to relearn is that writing about anything is just as good as writing continually about one specific train of thought. Adding in some one shot funny bits is rather cathartic when the idea around a four thousand word chapter seems too daunting a task.
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