Just Write the Damn Thing #3

There’s another reason why plunging in can help us more than outlining or doing a treatment or engaging in some other prep action.

Happy surprises.

I’m sure you’ve found, like me, that sometimes great stuff pops out in the middle (and particularly at the very end) of a scene, when we actually write it.

Stuff that never would have materialized if we were just blocking out the scene in outline or rough draft form.

There’s a big difference between the first hour of work and the third hour.

My theory is that we get tired by Hour Three. The goddess likes that. Our ego starts to poop out. Doors open in our mind. 

The Muse likes to slip through those doors.

But we don’t get to that place ten minutes or a hundred minutes after we dive into the pool. It takes a bunch of laps back and forth before the left brain wears out and the right brain kicks in.

Just write the damn thing!

Kristof Milak of Hungary in the 200-meter butterfly at the 2020 Summer OlympicsThe post Just Write the Damn Thing #3 first appeared on Steven Pressfield.