Stumbling through philosophy

Writingness of the day: I've had good writing sessions each day this week. But today I realized that yesterday's session had gone off on a tangent—and it's too late in the story for tangents. Besides, if I'd headed in that direction it would have undermined the entire philosophical underpinning of this story, the themes I've been working with, the thing that made me want to write it in the first place.

I don't always have a problem with that kind of thing—sometimes a book becomes what it's meant to be, not what you intended for it. (In fact, I'd argue that's more frequently the case than not, especially if you're an organic writer.) In this case, though, I think it really was just a wrong turn. An "Ooh look at the shiny" distraction that was going to pull the story away from its foundations.

So I scrapped that part and started again. We're not talking about a huge amount of text here, but at this point any delay in ending this thing feels monumental. I can smell the ink on "The End" at this point, so I resent anything that keeps me getting closer to it.

It is what it is. More important to head in the right direction than to keep stumbling forward and fall on my face.

Learning to wait

Random quote of the day:





Apropos for me, at any rate.

(Happy centenniel, Mr. Heinlein.)