Thursday, 08 May 2003

Saved time? Wasted time? I'm not sure.

I had several good ideas for a story--and still do have them. What I don't have is a story.

I spent half an hour working on the first few sentences of a new story (after writing half a page of notes of the world-building sort), but nothing seemed to click.

Then I realized what the problem was: I don't know how the story was going to end.

In the past I've often tried to just write through something like that--set up a scene or some characters or a situation and play with it a bit and see what came to me. But my experience with that has generally been pretty unsatisfactory. To write a good opening scene, I really need to know where the story is going to end.

So, I stopped working on the beginning and started working on the ending. I didn't make much headway, but it's been more productive than watching Buffy.

Rested yesterday and today. I probably could have run this evening--my sore knee and other assorted achy bits were pretty much all better, but it was chilly and rainy. Putting off the run is probably a better idea anyway. I just worry any time I take more than a day off, because I know how easily I revert to being sedentary.