All right, no more torturing people with snippets of an unedited WIP.
The transmission on my car has been acting for a couple of weeks now. At the end of last week, the car seemed like it was barely going to make it home, and I only live about five miles from work. My first hope was that I could just go get some transmission fluid, fill the resevior and be all set. It sounded so simple.
Except that after checking the dipstick, I discovered the car didn’t need transmission fluid, it was already full. Well…crap. I’m making a one week paycheck last for two while I transition from contractor to full time employee, and I just replaced my hot water heater. So that meant I was SOL until payday.
And then the car hit an all time panic point for me. It slipped out of gear while I was driving it, and wouldn’t shift back into gear again. I had enough momemntum to drift into a nearby junior high parking lot and sit and curse the gods of mischief whom I see fit to pray to.
But I couldn’t leave the car there all night. 1 – I had to get to the grocery store, and 2 – they probably would have towed it the next morning even if I’d parked it and walked back home. So I sucked up my guts and decided to try again.
This time the car did okay on the road. I’ve discovered in the last three or four days that as long as I start off slow when it’s cold, and baby it when it needs to shift, that I’m okay. It probably irritates the hell out of the poor driver who’s stuck behind me at the time, but it means I can drive to and from work. And the longer it’s on the road, the more the transmission warms up and the smoother the shifting gets. So I know now where the shift points are in my car. I ease off the gas as I approach each one, and I’m okay. The only problem comes when I get impatient and try and force it. The gears spin endlessly again, nothing catches, and I’m drifting down the road in a car that can’t find a gear.
Which is exactly how my writing is going right now. I’m used to diving in, typing out thousands upon thousands of words, and letting my fingers fly until the story is told. I’m finding recently that if I try and do that, i sit and stare at a blank screen with a blinking cursor for hours on end. Okay, I don’t actually have free hours in my day, but minutes on end at the very least.
But if I type the snippets of thougth in my head, and get them on paper when I have them. If I don’t try and force a story out that isn’t there, I can actually get something done.
I feel like a tortoise this November, but slowly and surely the story is starting to come together. As long as I remember that, I should be okay.
Are you trying anything new with your WIP that’s working well for you?