Drawing from the Well
Queries Sent: 0
Total Queries: 14
Rejections: 1
Scenes Arranged: 4
Total Scenes: 231
Finally broke the seal again. Feels good, man. All the chapters for Grant’s storyline leading up to the Midpoint are mapped. Now I have to put together two or three for Meibor and then it’s into the Midpoint. Looks like I’m on track for ~500 scenes by the end of this. That’s down from ~600 at the Key Event. Does that matter? Who knows. Numbers interest me. I’m a nerd.
Filling the Well
1984: 18%
A Good War: Page 8 of 92
Yeah, A Good War is definitely better than Elegy. Trying to keep chewing up these books.
Polishing the Well
Yesterday we went back to church and it was good. The rest of the day were some errands, some naps, some work, and some more family time spent together. It was good times.
Well Chat
Crippled or Cauterized?
Fear. It is a part of life. It is a part of fiction. It is something that we have all dealt with to varying degrees in our life. It is a critical component of the fight or flight response. But what do you do when fear transcends your automatic responses and freezes you?
Ride it out.
In the very first episode of Lost, Jack talked about fear. He said “let the fear in, let it take over, let it do its thing, but only for five seconds”. That’s the key. You can’t run from fear. It’s ravenous. It will chase you and hunt you down. But if you let it in, acknowledge that you’re afraid, wait a moment, and then let the fear go, the devil in that fear will flit off to another victim.
Now, that’s not to say you should wish evil on others, far from it. But we all experience fear. You deal with yours and then encourage others to deal with theirs. That’s all you can do.
As for me and my writing and how Fear Incarnate has had its way with me, it has always manifested as a full stop on my writing. No blogs. No chapters. No scenes. No short stories. No tweets about writing. No discussions about writing. Full. Stop. It has come in the form of despair of never finishing or feeling like a hack or general inadequacy. Either way, I let the fear take the wheel and steer. I didn’t let the fear go. I found a distraction and ran with it.
This is the wrong way to handle it. Grab it by the jowls, remind it that you ARE a success because of your victories in the past, and thrust it away. Fear is an emotion. Master it. Don’t let it master you.
May the tide carry you to safer shores.
Berie