Double shot today!

This morning, I slept late and ended up watching church livestreamed on YouTube. After church, I gave into an urge to get back to work on the book. I started a new section that might be the beginning, and then I shifted to another section, developing an entirely different part of the book. Presumably because it wasn’t Official Writing Time, Charlotte declined to join me in the recliner, choosing to nap in her perch instead, Fortunately, Olivia took her place, so I’m pleased to report that Tuxedo Cat Press has continued to provide appropriate supervision as I perform this challenge.

But as it turns out, Charlotte isn’t the only creature of habit. I returned from Mom’s just before nine o’clock this evening. As I puttered around, doing various house chores, I had the familiar urge to write—after all, Official Writing Time was fast approaching. So even though I’d already written my 1,000 words, I settled back into the routine. Sure enough, this time Charlotte joined me.

One of the things about the challenge that I’m enjoying is the fact that what I write doesn’t have to be gorgeous, polished prose. It’s enough simply to tell a story. If I use the word “really” in the space of two sentences, the world won’t end, because I can fix it when I edit. At this stage of the proceedings, all I need to do is to explore what my characters think and feel as they converse and act. Turns out, there’s a huge freedom to be found in discovering a story one smallish chunk at a time. Eventually, I’ll need to look at the whole piece, identify the gaps, and write the missing material, but that time is yet to come.

Right now, it’s almost scary how smoothly the story is moving. After my struggles with Becoming Mrs. Claus, it’s hard to believe the way this story is flowing. While I don’t believe in jinxes, there’s a part of me that’s hissing, “You fool! Don’t publish a statement like that!” for fear that one day, I’ll sit down to write and nothing will come. I almost didn’t write this evening for precisely the same reason, i.e., a fear of “using up” the story. It’s as though I don’t trust that as long as I keep showing up and writing, my brain or the muse or whatever my source is will continue to deliver story material.

But writing is an act of faith, always has been. The faith that somehow, in the thousands upon thousands* of words in the English language, I will recall or find the words that best express what I’m thinking so that I can communicate that thought to someone else. The faith that those words will create a world so vivid that a complete stranger can enter it. The faith that from those words will spring characters no one has ever before conjured and that somehow, the lives of those fictional people will touch a reader’s heart.

And so, I will not be afraid of double-shot days. Because I have faith in the words.

*Fun fact: the Second Edition of the 20-volume Oxford English Dictionary contains full entries for 171,476 words in current use, plus 47,156 obsolete words.