Slow progress

Life keeps getting in the way, but I'm slowly making some progress on Beacon Burning.

I was really stalled out on chapter 3. I kept trying to weave in Catreena and Saray's story, and it wasn't working. Gradually I realized that a scene I was trying to avoid writing HAD to be written. It actually wasn't hard once I got into it. I just had to change my p.o.v. character. Now I think I'm back on the right trail.

I believe a lot of what we call writer's block is a resistance that builds in our minds when we try to convince ourselves we know a shortcut or a better way around in a story, and the story itself won't let us. You can call it your muse or say your characters are controlling the story, but whatever it is, it does form an impediment to continuing the story or even continuing to write the story.

Life may conspire to block our progress, but I've found that if I REALLY want to write, I will do so in spite of whatever problems I'm facing. In fact, my writing provides a release from stress and an escape from daily disasters. Rarely do my characters experience anything like what I'm going through, yet their "trials and tribulations" often make my problems seem trivial, so that I discover a double relief--that of escaping into their world for a while and that of escaping back into my own once more!