Writer’s Block Isn’t Really What You Think, Version #73

Recently I’ve been nervous about the scene I’m going to start writing today. I didn’t know what I was going to write, and I thought the reason I didn’t know was that a significant chunk of the discussion was going to center around some RL warfare technologies with which I have only a glancing acquaintance. But then I got there yesterday, and tried to write the lead-in, so I’d have something to come back to after I’d boned up on the technical stuff…and discovered the Real Problem.

The war I’m writing about is erupting like popcorn thunderstorms in a variety of locations, which is how rebellions typically will. In each eruption, the motivations of the people who rebel are different. People don’t wake up in the morning and say, “Hm, I’ve had enough, I think it’s time for a rebellion”: not unless they’re well-fed intellectuals with too much time on their hands. When the peasants revolt, it’s because they believe they’re out of other options.

I knew why the other locus of rebellion I’m writing about had gone over the cliff. I finally realized, yesterday, I couldn’t answer that question for the present rebellion.

Once I finally began addressing that question, I found a huge reservoir of thematic deliciousness waiting for me. Now I’m SO EXCITED to write this scene, this chapter, this thread–and the technical brushing-up I need to do is no more than a minor detour in my head.

Same old story: the thing I think is the problem is just the thing my left brain can identify. The reason my right brain is really holding me up is that I haven’t done the deep plotting work.