Pre-planning

Okay, let's review the situation here. It is now early in the morning at the beginning of a long, three-day weekend. The New Thing is currently idling in neutral, waiting for its alleged creative mastermind to fix the corner he wrote himself into, and write a simple conversation between two kids on their first date. How hard could that possibly be?

Or...I could go with Superwife to her friend's pool party and cookout today; go see WALL-E with some friends one day this weekend, and another pool party/cookout at mom's house the other day; and possibly go out for drinks too with yet another friend. Hmm.

I funked out just like this about four months ago, right after beginning Chapter 7, and for the same reason too: I wrote myself into a corner. Part of it is not wanting to fix things, and part of it is not wanting to have to fix things -- it would totally awesome, in other words, if everything I typed out was good to go the minute I finished it. Unfortunately, it doesn't work that way; not for me, and not, I'm quite sure, for anyone else either. Corrections must occasionally be made.

Four months ago the first (gosh, let me check!) 500-odd words sat gathering dust, while I read them to myself over and over a few dozen times and tried to figure out why word #501 wasn't magically appearing in my head. Then we went on vacation for 10 days to Arizona and Nevada (Sedona, AZ: astoundingly beautiful country), wherein nothing was accomplished but for seeing old friends and having an amazing time.

By the time we got back in early April, the creative juice I'd been trying to wring out of my head had dried up, and I had lost the fantastic writing urge I'd had for the past month since being inspired for the first time in years. I'm not particularly worried I'll lose it again; not so soon, and not while I know which direction the book is going now, more or less. It's even pretty simple: just back up a few paragraphs, half a page, whatever, and start over again. I've done it a million times before. I just don't like doing it.

Or I could attend a cookout, go to the movies, and enjoy some holiday company.

I love coming to a decision; don't you?