Around the bend...

I took the whole day to myself to write or plot or putter on Divas... whatever the heck I felt like doing, so long as it was somewhat writing related. Still, writing was calling my name, and I was determined to spew out a chunk of words on Touch today.

I had high hopes at the start of the day, with my pot of coffee and background-noise play list. Then I went back to review comments on the WaW excerpts, thinking to integrate the ideas (where applicable).

Total brain freeze.

I wrote NOTHING today. Well, except this blog post and a whole lotta posting on Divas. Lets face it - while Divas is fun, educational and feels like a family most days... participating in the threads does NOT increase the wordcount in my WsIP.

Still, I can't help feeling like I turned a corner today in both my story, Touch, as well as in my skills as a writer.

First, I participated in a fun exercise yesterday meant to flex my 'underpainting' skills. This is a term used to describe the process of description. Painting that picture in the reader's mind of the people and places in your story by using BODY, ENVIRONMENT, IDEAS and EXPERIENCE.

The facilitator gave a few lines of pretty stilted dialogue between a man and woman, and I was to take that dialogue and build a world and characters around it.

It was a lot of fun, and I have to admit I was pretty happy with the way mine came out. The other folks did a fab job as well, and although I knew that this was something that was required to bring a story to life, it's an entirely different matter to define the concept into something my brain can process.

As such, I feel like a whole new writer today. Like I know what I'm doing, even as my storyline for Touch fell completely apart...

And that, my friend, brings me to the reason why I got absolutely nothing actually written today. I spent a lot of time pondering, sorting, and discarding ideas on heightening the conflict with this little story.

I've been struggling with the balance between the motivation/conflict/actual story and the naughty, fun, sex stuff.

I *think* I've worked it out :D but, and it's a BIG BUT (no, I'm not talking about my big butt!) it involves a whole lotta deleting and rewriting.

Upwards and Onwards, right?!