Good Morning Monday

Good morning Monday! I find myself struggling to get to work on this sunshiny southern California morning. The sky is bright blue, their is a warm breeze, the temperature will hover around perfect all day and yet, these are normal events in LA and not the reason for my distraction.

I am frustrated.

I am working on another rewrite of a manuscript that I've now worked on for what seems like forever. The story feels flat. The tone is off. There isn't enough funny. And I am starting to loathe the process.

This frustration with my WIP happens every time for me and to nearly ever writer I know. There is a moment (usually several) where I just don't like my WIP (work in process). I've found, that these moments, happen just before I crack through to something that makes a scene, a chapter, even a sentence better. There are days when I pace around my writing room, muttering and pulling my hair feeling as if all that comes out of my fingers are reams of slop, destined to be cut or burned.

And a whole lot of it is slop. But some of it isn't. I guess the tricky bit is knowing the difference. That, and accepting this is my process. I gnash my teeth. I get irritable. I hate what I've written. I vow never to put pen to paper again (or finger to keyboard). Basically I act like a horrible toddler on a terror all within the privacy of my writing room. Once this is complete. I write. I do the work. And usually what comes out...well it may be bad at first, but I can edit it. I can mold it. I can work with it. I can, if I just sit down and do my job, make it better.
xomm