The Hard Parts and The Easy Parts

Like many other jobs, being an author has its hard parts and its easy parts. One of the easy parts, at least last time with The Opposite of Normal, was writing the first draft. I pretty much sailed through that experience. (Unless I'm deluding myself and it was actually quite difficult and, like child birth and the resulting baby, the pain has been erased by the high of publication)

I'm working on my next book now, and I'm not having the same experience. Most mornings I've been dreading taking out the lap top to start.  I know what I want to do, though I'm not quite sure how I want to do it. My hands are not listening to me as I command the words to flow from my brain onto the screen.  I know where I want the book to go, but I keep wondering how I will get there.  This means that writing this time around is painful. Usually, for me, the first draft is the best part. It's the revisions that are horrendous.

I've heard other authors talk about this -- some books just flow and others don't -- so I know it's normal, but when they don't flow, frankly, it sucks.

When I'm into a first draft, I think about the characters all day. What are they going to do next? How will the plot go?  Who's going to get into trouble with stupid choices they make?  Imagine a bee buzzing around -- when the bee is many feet away and seemingly magically moving from one flower to the next to collect pollen, it's a nice scene that you can simply enjoy. But when the bee is loudly buzzing in your ear, annoying you, threatening you with a sting, your reaction is completely different. You want the noise, the pressure, the fear, to go away.

That's how I feel about this draft right now.  I want the bee to go away. Go back over there to the pretty garden so I don't have to hear your loud, insistent buzz.  Let me enjoy the nature scene from over here, where I sit with my book and my lemonade.

But the bee isn't listening. No, it isn't. It insists on buzzing in my ear, constantly, all day long. So I have no choice but to get the words down. Even if they are bad words. Even as I imagine having to rewrite entire scenes and chapters. Even as I wonder if I can carry off this complicated story, I am still writing the words. I sit down each morning and will the bee to buzz a little more quietly. So far, it hasn't.