After a couple of weeks of making myself write (not enough) I basically finished “A Hunger So Deep” in my head last night.
I’d been pushing a scene along when I suddenly knew what had to happen next. So I wrote most of that scene and then went to bed and couldn’t stop thinking about my characters. And then, lying there in the dark, the dominos began to fall.
I got up this morning and everything I’d thought through the night before still sounded really good to me. So I made notes and I’m eager to get back to the work of writing. Here’s my temptation–there’s a scene that’s so clear and powerful that I want to skip ahead and write it now. But I’ve never written that way. I’m very linear. Also, I can feel the tension in my writing building toward that scene and think it could help spur me on. It could also make me hurry and be less precise.
What would you do? Write the scene that’s burning a hole in your brain? Or save it like a fabulous dessert to reward yourself after you eat all the vegetables on your plate?
Meet Sarah
“As a mom” I’m inclined to say eat your vegetables first, BUT I’m also thinking the part leading up to the scene burning a hole in your brain might get slighted by the distraction of the hole buring in your brain… but what do I know about writing…? I’m just a mom. 😉
I tend to write beginning to end, but my writing is a lot shorter than yours – usually less than 1000 words. However, I’ve also had the experience of having the perfect scene or dialogue floating around in my brain before I’m to that point in my story. Usually I go ahead and write it out – sometimes in a separate document. That way I know I have the general flow of it down in case other things try to crowd it out of my brain.