IN THE ZONE

I'm writing the climax of Godtalk. It's chapter 17 of 18 and the main character is a prophet/messiah type and so, consequently, must die. I was worried, it being a powerful and meaningful, yet delicate sequence in the story that I would not be able to pull it off with the right sense of grace.

As I had with most other chapters in the book, I used bullets to outline the major events in the chapter and then wrote the scenes that effectively dramatized the bullet entries I'd made on the outline, thereby tying them together with "riveting" prose.

Funny thing: two days ago, during my writing period, everything was flowing--dialogue, action, description, even some theme work was rolling right off the keyboard. I started off today thinking, "this is going to be a snap, I'll just pick up where I left off and let the brilliance begin."

In point of fact, I couldn't seem to write a clean, sharp sentence all morning, or think of one original descriptive detail, or write a line of dialogue that didn't come off stilted or artificial. One day in the zone, one day not. That quickly, and with no explanation or solution.

I found that dichotomy very intriguing. And some writers would disagree with this, but my theory is you keep writing anyway.

You can always fix it later.