There are some days you trudge through your writing and each word on the page takes effort and consideration.<\/p>\n
There are the good days where you get in the spirit, and the writing flows freely enough to keep the fingers typing or the ink flowing.<\/p>\n
And then there are map days. Map days are when the story unfolds before you like a map, and you\u2019ve got to jot down the directions as quickly as possible before the paper blows away.\u00a0 These are the days where the ideas come so fast you have to go from actually writing the story to just sketching the quick details of each scene before they fade away.<\/p>\n
For me, it\u2019s like watching a movie in my head, and I\u2019ve only got a few seconds (and words) to describe each scene. These are my favorite days because, when they happen, they usually unfold the rest of the story for me, so even if I don\u2019t finish it that day, all the directions are already laid out, like a paint-by-number just waiting to be filled in.<\/p>\n
Today was a map day for me.\u00a0 The kids were away at the grandparents, and my husband was chugging away downstairs on his own work.\u00a0 I\u2019d done the dishes, folded some laundry, worked a little on my day job, and had just finished Neil Gaiman\u2019s last Masterclass video, and thus had no excuses keeping me from writing.\u00a0 So, I grabbed the story I\u2019d been working on the night before and told myself I had an hour.<\/p>\n
It was hard at first.\u00a0 It\u2019s always hard to start writing, at least for me.\u00a0 Inspiration always seems to come when I\u2019m as far as possible from being able to pick up a pen. When I sit down to write, it seems like a chore at first and I\u2019m often talking myself into starting (even though deep down it\u2019s something I __want__ to do).\u00a0 By the end, it\u2019s usually something I\u2019m glad I took the time to do.<\/p>\n
I chugged out a few paragraphs. I crossed out a few lines. I did it again. Crossed out an entire paragraph.\u00a0 Then, suddenly I was on page two, and then on page three, and then my hour was nearly up, and the map was before me and I was scribbling the rest of the story on sticky notes as fast as it came to me, which was pretty damn fast. I didn\u2019t have time to write the whole first draft, but the whole story is there, just waiting for the minor details.<\/p>\n
Days like this are why I keep writing.\u00a0 Days like this are __magic__.\u00a0 Writing is the only thing that makes me feel this way.\u00a0 Writing is the only craft I\u2019ve ever done that gives me a feeling of __foresight__.\u00a0 I painted and drew for years, but I was never able to ENVISION finished paintings the way I can sometimes envision stories. It really does feel like a muse is guiding me, like I\u2019m pulling something from the other side of a veil.<\/p>\n
I never know when my map days are going to come.\u00a0 With some stories they don\u2019t, and with some they come when I least expect it. (I barely liked this story when I started it yesterday, today I love it).<\/p>\n
I hope every writer or artists reading this has some map days of their own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are some days you trudge through your writing and each word on the page takes effort and consideration. There are the good days where you get in the spirit, and the writing flows freely enough to keep the fingers typing or the ink flowing. And then there are map days. Map days are when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6],"class_list":["post-72","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog","tag-writing","post-preview"],"yoast_head":"\n