These past few weeks (nay, months) I’ve been heads down over my WIP because I’ve finally worked through that Plot Block that’s been plaguing me. Hooray!
It’s been a very quiet, almost unceremonious, word-by-painstaking-word breakthrough. There was no flash of epiphany, no Great Insight or Sudden Awakening. There was a lot of butt-sitting, scribbling in and scribbling out, moody spaced-out silences and a ton of re-writing. Not to get it right; just to get through it. I figure if I write crap now, I can edit the crap out of it later.
I sometimes think of my writing progress as having been cleaved in two: pre-motherhood and post-motherhood. My brain is a little slower nowadays and it takes longer to find the right words (ok, I’m not getting younger either). In documenting the trivial self-discoveries, I feel like I’m re-learning how to write as a mother, as well as a wife, as a daughter and sister, a colleague etc. All these aspects of myself that must be juggled, as any writer must.
I think the loss of ease with which I used to write is not something to be mourned, but rather something to be redrafted and edited, over and over as situations change. That it should be embraced as a personal triumph.
So I’m going to revel in the mistakes and the story because I’m still writing. And that counts.
Spaces Between The Lines 