It turned out that today was a writing day, after all. I was hardly prepared. My bridge paragraph took forever to compose. My main character is in the throes of a life-altering opportunity and I found it difficult to portray her mixed emotions of disbelief, uncertainty and self-justification.
It may be clear that she's decided to accept this new offer simply because it's a means of escape, but I haven't even decided if that's true. (Reviewers will assert that I signaled that fact, even though I haven't even landed on it definitively yet.) Eventually I got past that bit of self-reflection and now my MC is distracted by other events. I think it's important to write those deflections. Life goes on and things happen. She's not going to simply sit and stew over her future for page after page. She's already reflected on how she's managed to ruin everybody's life she comes in contact with, but self-pity is not my go-to style. It's not fun to witness and it's a slog to read.
If I was to estimate, I maybe managed to write six or seven paragraphs today. I'm not a prodigious writer.
The good news is, I've reacquainted myself with this novella's world. I wrote Second Chance so long ago that I'd forgotten about it completely.
There were certain passages in the original that I liked and I'm not about to forsake them. The MC's mother absconding with the (much younger) bartender is a nice little twist. Granted, the original scene has been changed. I've narrowed down the Thanksgiving attendees to only four people, but that helps focus the little side story.
I do have plans for how to proceed, but these plans might follow a circuitous route. Planning is easy; execution is hard. That explains my meandering.
I figure anything can be fixed with editing. So if I meander too far, it's easy to pull things back.
My dearth of words not withstanding, I'm happy I dove in. Naive writers have big plans and schemes. The truth is, nothing is ever accomplished 'til one sits down and does the work.
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