Letting Creativity Flow

I’m feeling great today. A few months ago, while I was writing every day and making progress toward the midpoint in my wip novel, I started a short story that was burning a hole in my head. I would work on the novel in the a.m., and the short story in the p.m.

But as often happens when I work on two projects at once, the characters and plots became muddled in my head, both competing for my attention. I decided to put the novel on hold for the time it took me to crank out the 1^st draft of the short story.

The short story ended up being slightly over sixty pages and took me five weeks to write. The good news is, I completed that first draft on Saturday, and now I’ll put it away for a month or so while I go back to my novel.

I feel like I will need several days of reading and editing the novel just to become intimate with the main characters again. I need to reignite that passion for that particular story, which I expect to take both time and work.

That extra effort will be worth it, I’m sure, because I’m thrilled with how my short story, Handcarved Elephants, turned out. I had a clear idea of the ending I wanted, but as often happens with me, as I drove toward the crisis and resolution, things took a turn for the better, and the characters led me to a slightly different, much more satisfying ending.

That really is one of the things about writing that I love the most, when I let creativity bubble up and flow through me, presenting something so much better than my conscious, calculating mind envisioned.

And now it’s time to plop my butt in a chair for a few hours and crank out some words.