Finally over the blockage.

Went to see Jack the Giant Slayer yesterday with Linda because I just couldn't get anywhere with the manuscript.  I gave up again.

The movie was O.K.  I get the sense that a whole lot of money is being spent on these fantasies that don't need to be spent.  They could squeeze two or three good movies out of these overblown spectacles with just a little cleverness.

The lead actress was gorgeous, and I was convinced she was older than the callow young lad who plays the lead.  But no, just that in the mid-teens to early twenties, the girls often seem more mature to me.


So, back to writing.  I was well and thoroughly blocked.  Hasn't happened since my latest very prolific streak.  This was turning into a second wasted week.  Finally decided last night that I would simply rewrite the problem chapter from scratch, without reference to the earlier words.

But I was worried, because I wasn't feeling the story and if I'm not feeling the story, the words won't come.

Apparently, I needn't have worried.  I woke up at 6:00 in the morning and had the beginning already.  Once again my subconscious has said, "You're not done, bub."  Apparently, I was feeling the story after all.

Once I have the beginning, the rest usually comes easy, and sure enough, a couple of hours later I finally had a serviceable chapter.  The previously written material suddenly took on a clear order and I was done.

An interesting thing is happening.  The original manuscript had a bulky beginning that was about 40% of the book before the main protagonists show up and then a kind of lighter tone sets in for the rest of the book.

It didn't work.

Linda rewrote that beginning and cut about 70% of it.

I've been going back to the original bulky beginning of SOMETIMES A DRAGON and interspersing that information as flashbacks.

What interesting to me is the flashbacks are going from the latest to the earliest.  What would make more sense and what usually happens with flashbacks is that you would go from the earliest to the latest.

But somehow it makes an intuitive sense in the book to reverse that.  So that the more dramatic moments, which happen early in the story, will be reintroduced later in the story.

I love this kind of theoretical stuff.  Even though I have no idea what I'm doing.