Well, I didn't show up and I didn't show up. And I still haven't shown up.
As I contemplate sitting down in front of the computer screen, puzzling and struggling with "what happens next", I feel this claustrophobia set in. I feel the room's walls close in on my mind. I can see the blackness as I imagine sitting in front of the computer. I am paralyzed. It's a fear I don't understand.
A while ago I decided that I just want to reach the end. I look back at the first 3/4's and I find it's easy to think of different versions of the scenes, once they are written out. I just need to get the last quarter written out and then I can take a step back from the whole story. I can see it as a whole. I've been at this same section for over a year now. I should be long done by now.
I know it's irrational. It could be the biggest room with skylights and high ceilings but it's the space between me and the computer screen- it's a little box and getting smaller and there's so much heaviness.
I finished Game of Thrones last week. It's added to my special pile of 'I'm in awe' books. It's alongside Harry Potter, Dune, Octavia Butler books, The Belgariad, Ender's Game.
The worlds are so big, or the story is so fun, or the story/pace just doesn't stop.
There is something freeing about reading a book like that. I cannot aspire to give someone that experience. It somehow makes me breathe out with a sigh of relief- I don't need to worry about perfection anymore- it's been done. I can move on to just writing this story that I enjoy. I'd really just like to see how the rest of the story comes out.
And then I read another story that I had to force my way through. It gives me inspiration that I could give someone a better experience than that. And the piece I identify that I don't like, I can add to the growing list of things I won't do to my reader. In this case: if someone knows something and wants the protagonist to know it too, the character tells the protagonist. He doesn't leave obscure clues. (kind of like Dumbledore in all of Harry Potter (but mostly book 6 and 7) (or Lupis in book 3). But HP had so much fun going for it that I could get through it. This one was just terrible. It was a filler book. Instead of moving the plot along, it just got hung up in getting from one clue to the next. And I'd already figured out the big secret at the end of book 1 so that made it even harder to read filler book number 2.
Sigh.
I just wanted to write down what's been going through my head. Maybe if I get it out there, the claustrophobia will go away.
I know the next scene. What big bad terrible thing will happen if I don't get it quite right? What is the worst thing that can happen if I waste 2 hours staring at a blinking cursor?
Isn't it worth it to just get the scene out there and move on to the next one?
I know where I'm going. I know how the book ends. Obviously I don't need to worry about the story being too long anymore. If it's interesting, I will happily read 800 pages, so will other people. And once I can take a step back, I can cut out anything boring that remains because I have plenty of length to work with.
