I struggled today.

The scene I’m writing should be easy. It’s a conversation between the interesting unknown and one of the main characters. It’s a chance to get a bit of backstory, (or pieces of backstory, since I have no idea what the backstory is yet) and some information as to the central plot, but I’m finding it hard to pull each word out of my brain.

Perhaps those words are stuck in my elbow or just above my wrist, I’m not sure. Either way, there is gunk in the works between my head and my fingers.

The worst part is that I think I know the issue. Yesterday, I spent time going back over the first 6,000 words or so of the story, polishing, adding some more descriptive elements, and checking for continuity and I think that hurt my momentum.

I have a hard deadline for this draft and I was worried that I would approach that date without time left to give the story at least a basic copyedit. It’s easy for me to confuse names or plot points as I write, especially in longer pieces. So I talked myself into going back and checking instead of enjoying the story.

In other words, I got scared and I messed up.

Knowing that I’m pretty useless after dinner, I’ve given myself a bit of a Mulligan for this evening – like a Minigan. I’ll jot down a few ideas for tomorrow’s writing session and then, at 5:30 a.m., while the toast is still digesting in my tum, I’ll get the story back on track.