Back On

I had ideas for writing yesterday, which I got in the bookstore Tuesday where I had gone to pick up Mary Karr’s Lit –an amazing memoir. (I have already devoured it.)  Anyway, back at the bookstore on Tuesday, I hurriedly wrote ideas into a tiny notebook I keep in my purse, intending to write scenes from them yesterday, but then I didn’t.

I have excuses: I didn’t bring my new laptop to school, because I had papers to check during office hours. I didn’t get papers checked Tuesday because I spent the day reading. In between classes and paper checking, I did manage to scratch out a few lines of dialogue and to list four scenes I wanted to write, filling out the ideas I had Tuesday. I figured that page of outline was good for 4000 words, which is what I needed to stay on track.

But when I got home from work yesterday there was Lit which I had fallen asleep reading Tuesday night. I was dying to finish it, so I didn’t write but read instead. Taking a day off is dangerous for me, but I was so in love with Mary’s world I risked it. I figured today I could write 4000. And I did.

So the day off, and the fabulous book I read, which is the true story of a writer who is lost and then finds herself,  inspired me. I cranked them out pretty much effortlessly this morning and then at the very end, when I was watching that word count so I could quit, I got an unexpected gift in the form of a plot turn I didn’t see coming.

Love when that happens.