Ruts and the Organic Muse

As promised, I moved on to the business of TR's ending. I stopped analyzing, planning and organizing the scenes in advance and just began again on the last scenes. And discovered why it had been so hard to know how to proceed.

The scene I was writing is the hero's black moment. The thing he's been dreading the most is happening and the heroine is introducing him to reality. Unfortunately, the author hasn't figured out the secrets to this reality so the heroine is having trouble 'splainin' it to said hero. Now, hold on, I didn't say I quit writing. I'm still going.

Bill Kirton of Living and Writing and Other Stuff commented a couple days ago, "There's no doubt, though, that whatever technique you adopt (careful pre-plotting, wading straight in with only a vague idea of your direction, a single event or a multitude of them), you're dealing with an organic whole which will grow in whatever direction it wants, however disciplined you are. In fact, I'd go as far as to say that disciplining it too severely risks stifling it altogether"

I'd been working and reworking my redetermined ending for this book for a month. Suddenly, as if struck by the lightning bolt from muse heaven, I realized that instead of trying to make the scenes fit my outline, I needed to just start writing and allow it to follow its own path. I know. DUHHHHH, Marley. But you know, we get stuck in ruts and need a shove to get out sometimes.

So I picked up my pen and my notebook and started writing. I wrote that HARD scene with the hero and heroine and just kept writing, penning around 6000 words in two days. I believe I may finish the book by hand as the plot seems to be developing more organically that way. Thanks, Bill.