Action over analysis

I spent two hours yesterday afternoon writing. Well, okay, maybe it was editing and not actually adding new words but it's an entire first chapter. I can only remember thinking about writing for that long and longer but not actually sitting down and doing it. I don't have any recollections of when the last time I actually sat down and worked on writing before yesterday.

It started when I got a review request from someone on the writing.com site. Someone wanted me to take a look at their first chapter/intro. I took a look. I gathered my thoughts and I sent back a review. Since it was a public review (most are visible in an specific area of the site) someone else read my review and gave me good feedback on it. I had to thank them on the acknowledgement but then I got a thumbs up on a review I had given a book I read on a different site (goodreads.com). I had to take a moment to tap down the excitement of getting a nod for anything, especially reviews. Somebody, somewhere, took the time to read them and actually thought they had some value. I'm talking two in one day which was reason enough to try to tap down anything.

I couldn't help thinking how I'm able to give out others meaningful feedback and yet not able to find the errors of my own ways in my writing. That isn't entirely true but I pretend. I found myself in my upstairs office and opening the document I have of the story about the young woman with the imagination. It's the one I just started writing without any idea of what the story was about or where it was going. The working title so far is Imaginary Lines and I started by giving it the same type of review I gave to the others. It was merely a piece of work that I was going over as if it belong to someone else and by the time I was feeling like I needed to get up from my desk, two hours had blown by and I had the entire first chapter drafted.

I woke up extra early this morning and knew I had some notes on this same story. I got to looking and sure enough I found some really organized ideas about this story. Somewhere, at some point in time, I put some thought into where this random bit of writing was supposed to go.

So, I am working to assemble these notes to have a clearer picture of how I am going to approach the progress on this story. I already have some clear cut ideas worked out and even have a frame of where I might proceed through chapter three.

This was a throw-away piece. I started putting down words that I had no idea where they might lead. I've even avoided working on this because I have the first draft of a completed novella I have stopped and started revising and thought I should work on that. Let's not even mention the entire novel that needs serious rework - no serious, serious rework - we won't mention that right now and how I keep thinking these other completed works should be the priority.

But maybe because this is a throw-away piece I can approach it from the place of the outside reviewer. Maybe it's because I've gotten past having any sentimentality about all these words that spill out and I can try to organize what I want for this particular piece. Maybe I just got past all the trappings of having to tap down the feelings that something is more than it is and just go for the things I'd rather spend time on doing. Does it matter if I work on this piece over the others or is it still a matter of what would I rather be working on instead of thinking about what I should be working on.

Because, who cares? Why try to figure out if I should work on this or that. I'm going to work on this and then maybe that and not waste the brainpower on trying to figure it out. I'm simply glad I got that boost of motivation and now I can take it wherever I want to go.
TT