I broke the fifty page mark in the manuscript for my second book last night and I must say it feels wonderful! From here the writing goes so fast (or at least it did in the last book).
I am scared to admit that for the past month I have been stuck at forty pages and have had a hard time writing chapter seven. I don't why this happens but some chapters are more difficult than others to write. In the downtime, I have been transferring my character sketches and extra notes into Scrivener so that I have more than one copy. Going through the character sketches allowed me to get reacquainted with characters other than my main five and I think this is why I was finally able to finish the seventh chapter.
When I write it's not just like the words magically flow from my fingertips and spin themselves into gold. Though, there are times when I am reading something and I think to myself, "hey this is kind of brilliant." A lot of the time I go into a kind of trance when I am writing and I forget what I have written almost as quickly as the space bar is hit. Somewhere is this trance, I have conversations with my characters and they take me by the hand and show me their lives. It is like a movie flashing through my head as I try to take everything in as fast as possible and write it down. So needless to say, if I don't have a good working relationship with my characters, then our conversations aren't really helpful and I find myself having a hard time conquering that specific chapter. My problem character (up until last night) just seemed so awkward and I wasn't sure how to make her more comfortable around me but I suppose she loosened up as the chapter is done and I exceeded the fifty page mark. I'm not sure if this writing process is cohesive with other writers out there. Maybe it's not the right way, maybe it makes me feel crazy, but I have found a way to tell a story that I believe in, with characters that I believe in. As someone who loves to write, I'm not sure it can get much better than this.
xoxo
K.K.