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I have a few pages today. Hard won pages. But it’s progress. I’ve got the scene beyond, but I’m still having fits bridging the two scenes. Sometimes that means you don’t need the bridge, and the scenes work just fine cheek to cheek, but not this time. I need the bridge, or a small scene in between. Richard has been trying to cooperate this book, but I can’t really blame him for wanting to bail. He’s been a good sport, but there is a limit, and he’s allowed that limit. But it may endanger us all. Sigh. I actually did something I seldom do, and printed out the last chapter and let someone else read it. Jon got picked for the duty. He told me what I’d begun to suspect that there was nothing wrong with the chapter and everything wrong with the inside of my head. If you are not a writer I don’t know how to explain how ugly the inside of the head can get during a book. The fact that it happens on every book without exception for most writers doesn’t make it less unpleasant, but you would think I’d have figured it out sooner. I think the reason it took so long was that even for me this has a been a wildly productive year, and I’m tired. That part of you that the writing comes from, needs a break, a little time to refill the well. I’ll get it, when this book is done, but this book has loomed like a huge wall before me. The best analogy I can come with is that I’ve been staring at what felt like the Great Wall of China, no way around, or over, just an impassable barrier. Today, Jon helped me look at it honestly, not just through the anxiety and tiredness in my head. It’s a wall, yes, but it’s more like those little walls they have around decoritive gardens. You know the kinds that are mostly for keeping out the rabbits? Well, I’m on the other side of the wall now. The garden seems like a wilderness, but there’s a path. I know where I’m going, I just have to figure which characters are going with me, and who wants to sit this one out.
I’ve divided the day between the new Evanescence album and “The Secret Garden”, the Broadway album. Maybe that’s where all the garden metaphors are coming from. Probably. I haven’t had to pull the Christmas music out, yet, but I have written long hand most of the day. For those of you new to the blog, when the writing is going badly, I change from modern music to musicals, and if the writing continues to go slow I break out the Christmas music. It’s always bad when I’m listening the Christmas music in July. Only moments ago did I type in some of the notes, and make actual pages. Long day. I guess long night now. It’s a blustery night here. We were supposed to get snow, but luckily it warmed up, because we’ve had a lot of rain. I can’t imagine how many inches of snow it would have turned into.