Emotional Involvement

Today I was faced with the task of writing a very emotional scene of loss. Honestly, I almost started crying once I was in the character's mindset and tried to find every excuse NOT to write. The most difficult scene is now done, but I fear for a few coming up. Say what you will, but unless you're an actor or a writer, I'm not sure if you can truly understand the emotion that stems from trying to understand another's point of view. For writers it's much worse since we decide what actually happens to a character, but if everything was perfect, you wouldn't have a story. To be more precise, you wouldn't be truly alive if everything went just the way you wanted it, all the time. Readers may criticize and whinge (a lovely British word for whine), but without hardship, you'd have a pretty boring story no one would want to read.

I'm on the home stretch, nearly at 80,000 words and everything's coming together. Even the set-up for book two is mostly in place, which I can hardly wait to start writing. I have the ambitious goal of finishing the first complete draft by the end of this week (Sunday, perhaps), but it all depends on the final length. 90,000 words is doable, but 100,000 would be pushing it.

Right before I start editing, I'll be rewriting the first two chapters. I'm horrible at beginnings until I know the ending, and being the non-plotter I am, I'm still a little hazy about the details for the ending. What I had wanted to do originally may not work. In any case, the current Chapter One I have just won't do and needs to be jazzed up a little. Then I'm faced with the impossible task of fixing plotholes, mistakes and inconsistencies (Oh, I already know I have more than a few).

I'd better get back to writing and stop procrastinating. True I write best in the morning, but lately I've been writing more than 2,000 words a day, which requires some evening time. Maybe I should chain myself to the desk...