When the Going Gets Tough …

We give up. No?

But we do. As we should. At the moment, and for the last week, I’ve been reviewing and revising the first draft of Not on the Cards (Title subject to change, but I still like this one), and I did it again. I deleted a great big chunk (in the newly created version of course). Only 25% this time. Usually it’s 50%. Signs of improvement (maybe).

Nice words, nice feel, but not good enough. And I wasted a week doing this and doing that and going back to the plan and pacing it out (tough to do in a wheelchair with minimum sized doorways – and dangerous for the dog!).

It got too much. I gave up. Threw the hands up in the air and rolled the eyes and lamented the journey of a writer. ‘Bloomin’ idiot’ are the words that float around like sparrow-sized mozzies ready for a bit of blood.

This is the state of mind I took to bed last night. Give up, start again, give up, do something new – on and on, around and around, until eventually, the mind relaxes and almost drops into the zed spot.

A few little words popped into my head. Not a picture, not an idea, just a few words. A bit of dialogue.

“You didn’t know, did you?”

Just those few words and I knew how to play it out. I leapt out of bed – whoops, fell out of bed, because I’m not allowed on my feet yet, and my back is braced so it can’t move. So, even though in my head I leapt out of bed, my body lay there, blowing smoke and oil and noise emanating like a blown valve in a motor at full revs.

What to do?

I’ve been disallowed from having a notebook and pen on the bed-stand, but I did slip the nubs – those bits of pencil too short for any useful purpose – into the top drawer, behind the two current reads – but, did I put something in there to write on? No. There are two books, written by someone else. I can’t bring myself to write on published works, which meant I had nothing to write the piece of dialogue on, as a reminder to the brain when fully awake again.

How to remember those words? Rack the brain, wriggle, try to find a method.

Slaps head (only in mind though, can’t wake anyone up). Of course. The mantra, the repetition of things a specific number of times to ensure recall.

Seven times? Three? Twenty-one?

It’s important. Sing it 21 times (now, I can’t sing and am tone-deaf, but in my head, in that safe space, I can sing opera as well as the best: Pavarotti, Nellie Melba, even. No kidding).  21 times in a variety of tones and tunes. Done!

Am I sure it will work? What if it doesn’t? Is there another technique?

Chant, 21 times. Over and over again – was that 21? Do it again, just to be sure. Must remember. Must, must, must remember.

The words were there this morning, as you saw above. There was something else though. As I re-spoke those words, as I wrote them onto my notes and into the mss, only those words, in the background was the picture that played the whole scenario. The body language, the tone of voice, the setting. All there, and from a few tiny little bits of dialogue.

All I have to do now is try to find an hour at a time to get the work Done! So, off I go into the den of rewriting the second half of Act 2. Again.

See you Sunday!

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pic from Pixabay (fantasy-2437944_1920).