Wednesday, January 3, 2007

A Single Page

Today I wrote a single page. That's all I managed to get done. I stared into space for half an hour, listening to some Spanish guitar music, then I wrote.
It's not that the words didn't flow. They did, the scene came from me smoothly and without any kind of pain. It was beautiful, considering how I've been struggling it for about three months. No, it was so perfect that I felt it was needless to continue.
Three damn months of twisting, struggling, trying to get those two damn characters to meet halfway in my head. Today, in ten minutes they were on the paper. Smug little gits. I hate them.

Of course, now that's done, the rest of the story will just flood out of me. It's been ready, waiting for those two to get their prima-donna act together.

It's not easy, being me. I'm not a creator, I'm just a conduit for the characters that spring into my head. They're the ones that run the show. I'm an innocent bystander. Let other writers talk about plot developments, story outlines and so on. If my characters don't like my outlines, they just stage a coup d'etat. They live as they will, love whomever they choose, and die before their time. It's exhausting.

Still, for a single page, like the one I wrote today, I suppose it's worth it. For the way the words flow from me onto the page, for the scenes that play in my mind, for the joy of flying without wings, it's all worth it.

Or maybe it was just the coffee.

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