Writing uses muscles, and I don’t just mean the ones in your fingers as you type. I’ve had a couple of days away from my desk, doing house and family stuff. Last night, I came back to work on SS5, and found that I couldn’t get into it. It wasn’t that I didn’t know what to write; I’d planned the next chapter out in detail. It was just that I’d let my writing muscles go cold.
So, I had to break through the cold crust and get back to the hot story magma below. That meant writing what felt like a chapter of utter rubbish in order to warm my muscles up again. I put the chapter to one side without reading it – I’ll get to that at some point today. It may be that it’s not as bad as it felt as I was typing the words; some of it may be usable, although I know my protagonists weren’t as involved as they should be. Still, the chapter served a purpose in that it helped get the creative juices flowing again. Sometimes, you have to write through the pain to get to the reward.
Tommy
