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Got up, and got going yesterday. At my desk by 8 something. Got ten pages done before lunch. Then after lunch it all fell apart. I started fussing at the scene. I know better. What’s the rule? If it works don’t rewrite it until the scene, or story line, or whatever is complete. Don’t fuss in the middle. Why? Because most of the time, for me, at least, the first version is the best. What makes me go back and try to fix it when it’s working is failure to believe in what I’ve written. In the afternoon my head went ugly and I just couldn’t see the writing clearly. I realized I wasn’t feeling well in the early evening. I actually was in bed like for sleeping by 9:30. Unheard of. But I felt better this morning. Jon and I are trying to get on the schedule we’ll need for school when Trinity starts back in a couple of weeks. I know many of you are already back on the school year treadmill. I didn’t realize how out of wack we were from the normal schedule until we started getting up this week and doing it. Apparently, we’ve really let our summer schedule vary from the school year schedule. For Jon and I, we try to keep Trin’s schedule closer, but even there, we fudge. You just do in the summer. But apparently, I just can’t stay up very late, and get up very early for very long. I felt better this morning, so I’m not sick, I’m tired. If I start getting enough sleep, then I won’t get sick, but yesterday afternoon was my body’s warning. Treat me better or we will be sick. Jon and I have had trouble getting back on the exercise routine since vacation and all the power outages. I know I feel better when we exercise though the exercise itself I hate. We’ve also gotten off our nutrition plan, and now as we get back on it, it’s harder to stay on it. All habits, good or bad, are easier to stick to, then to go back to.
Just reread the scene as I wrote it in the morning, and it’s good. It’s better than the rewrite I did in the afternoon. Both are good, but the first one’s better. Aren’t I glad that I didn’t delete it when I did the rewrite. When my head goes ugly I often keep the old version so that if sanity returns I can recover it. There are some really good lines in the afternoon version, but it’s not the right version. I’ll save some of the second version and use some of the lines later maybe, but I’m going to put the first version back and follow it where it leads. I tried to rush the scene. I tried to hurry through so I can get to the next part. I always feel pressured on weeks when I know I’ll be traveling later. But cheating my characters of their on stage time is not the way to cut corners. I both love it, and hate it, when a side character character comes on stage and just goes, here I am! In a very major way. It’s a blessing that they’ve become alive enough to demand their screen time. It only feels like a burden, like so many things in life from one angle it’s a blessing, stand a little to the side and it’s a burden. Blessing, burden, blessing, burden. Sometimes the only difference is perspective.