Writing Diaries: Treadmill Writing
When the writing session really is a climb.
The other day I spent around two hours at the end of a long day writing. Two hours doesn’t exactly sound impressive, but considering I almost didn’t plan on writing at all, it wasn’t something to sneeze at.
It was dark outside. My green lamp was on next to me. For once, I was actually at my desk and not half asleep attempting to write in bed. I needed to write since When in December’s deadline is quickly sneaking up on me and at this rate, I know that it will end up being a race to the finish unless I get my writing schedule in gear.
So I was writing. I was working on a scene/chapter that I had been putting off writing because I felt like I had already written it in my head a half dozen times and was just over it. There were pieces of the scene already sketched out from previous drafts. All I needed to do was connect them and get this draft done so that I could finally get to my favorite part where I knew the scene and the book as a whole would get better rather than feel like a crude rendition of the story I wanted to tell. Revising.
Two hours into this scene and chapter, I felt like I was both getting somewhere and getting nowhere. I finally made it out of a chapter that I had been sitting on for a good week or two and yet, the word count… didn’t move.
There was no progress I could see beyond the fact that I got to write the next chapter number.
In fact, for a second there, the word count went backward!
This is what I like to call, treadmill writing.Â
I am doing the work to move forward in the story, just not quantitatively moving in the word count. It is super frustrating when you are on a scene that you have been writing and rewriting in your head for ages and isn’t quite right, but there comes a time when you just have to sigh and say. Well, it’s done.
Even if the word count that you look at to grow a book doesn’t show it or increase.
Now, we just hope the quality is.
Currently writing…
Be sure to pre-order your ebook copy of When in December so it arrives on your Kindle the moment it’s available on release day!