TPD-2nd Draft Project Journal: Rippin’ and Runnin’

Well, it’s been a really chaotic past two weeks. Went through my son having pinkeye, ear infection, and Pneumonia, to dealing with a snow/ice storm, my wife being sick, and at the end, I got sick. I’m better now. Much better now.

During the last two weeks, well go back a week, don’t count this one, I was beginning to think I’d never catch up with my writing. The few times that I was able to sit down and write didn’t really produce anything. I was stuck on a scene that introduced Robert Green, one of my three main characters. The scene just would not come out “right”. I read it over and over and over for days. I’d change this word and drop that one, cut out this line off dialog and extend that one, don’t think I need this bit of action, but then again, maybe I do. Even though this is just the first run through of the 2nd draft, and all I should really focus on is getting the words down, I just can’t let a scene go if it doesn’t “feel right”.

It doesn’t have to “be right”, “look right”, “read right”, “sound right”, “smell right”, or even “taste right”. It just has to “feel right”, lol.

I was going mad. Started to think I was becoming burnt out on the project. Then, I realized one issue. I started the scene with one character first and introduced Robert second. The scene started to feel like it was the other character’s and not Rob’s, so I had to switch it around and it felt a little better. Another issue was that I kept trying to FORCE the scene to end a particular way, but once I said fuck it, and let it end how “it” naturally wanted, it felt even better. Finally, I got away from all my digital tools and rewrote the scene on paper in longhand.

Wow, that was it. That’s what I was missing. The scene flowed like water, some dialog changed, some action also, and by the end, yeah, it felt perfect. I typed up what I wrote–yeah, it “felt right”.

So, after spending days staring at my laptop straining my brain, good’ol pen and paper set things right. For this entire week I’ve been writing my scenes in a spiral notebook and transferring it to my laptop here and there. It really does feel good to get back to the basics, pen and paper. I’ve been rippin’ and runnin’ through scene ever since. I suppose it’s always good to switch even that up every now and then.

So far, I’ve introduced the three leads, and two of the four supporting characters. The next scene will introduce a third supporting character, Allen Ford, White male, 24, cold eyes, confident smirk, a fork-tongued college gambler. Allen is the type of guy people love to hate ,so I’m definitely going to have fun with his introduction into the script.

As always, I’ll get you updated.

QQs: Do you prefer digital or longhand to write? Do you switch it up? Which one do you think is better?