The gift (?) of perpetual surprise

Why is it that I continue to be surprised when writing is--hold onto your computer screens here--hard. Yep, it's true. Sometimes when we writerly types sit at the keyboard, the words refuse to jump through their hoops.

It's not that I ever find writing easy, exactly. It always takes a certain amount of effort to move from an amorphous vision to polished words on a page. But sometimes the first step of the process--dreaming the scenes--comes so easily that it's jarring to lose all momentum at the keyboard. I mean, it was all so clear in my mind, so alive and vivid; why are the words emerging as sawdust?

So today I took two breaks to get coffee, rearranged existing text a half dozen times, reread the opening chapter twice, and began chapter 2 about ten times. The result: I'm fairly convinced that the scene that seemed so perfect in my imagination doesn't work on paper.

Although, come to think of it, I might have a new vision of how to move the story forward. It looks absolutely perfect in my mind...we'll see how it looks on paper tomorrow.

:) Cheryl