The last days have been very strange – and productive – for me.

First, I decided that since I wasn’t listening to any audio books while commuting this week, I might as well listen to nothing and start thinking. This has allowed me to solve some issues in the story. Some of these issues, I had never realized were even there. If you want an example of one issue I was aware of and solved, at one point, I had one of the characters announce to everybody that he had a big plan. Some of his viewpoints showed him as setting the pieces one by one. The thing was, he might have known what he was doing, but me, as a writer, I had not even a clue about what my character’s plan was. Kind of a freaky situation. I fully expected this part of the plot to blow in my face. Having some time to myself allowed me to solve this. I know now what that character is thinking and why. This should tighten the plot a bit.

Second, my writing sessions have been way more productive than usual. I won’t repeat numbers here (remember this restriction on numbers I put myself under?), but for two sessions now, I did 50% more than usual.

For the first one, that was to be expected as this is basically the story line I’m dealing with here, so Ok, I can understand how things could have flown nicely for that chapter.

The next session however was different. At this point, I would have liked to go on with that thread and show what was happening. The thing was, as the action is not centred on the protagonist here, continuing on this thread would have further led the reader to forget about the protagonist.

It became evident that I had to insert there a chapter about the protagonist (thank you commutes-thinking sessions). I expected that chapter to be mostly filler – something probably bland and short, just to have the reader remember that some things are happening on the other side too. I know, I like to follow the bad people more than the good ones, but readers are mostly interested in heroes – usually.

So I started to write about the hero. At first, I produced some snippy fun dialog. That was all and well. I tried to make the protagonist smarter, more focused (you know that’s one of the novel’s weak points at this time). Then, I don’t know what happened, but my protagonist started to act, I got some feelings out of her (she’s usually quite bland), and then, BAM! Mystic experience! I have no idea where this came from, but it felt right here. Dead right. I had to stop writing at this point (a very frustrating occurrence), but now, I know what I’ll write in the next session, and then in the next.

So, I don’t know what happened – maybe those thinking sessions helped me focus more on the story – maybe I’m more inspired than usual – maybe my characters have obtained a life of their own. I really don’t know. All I know is: I don’t want it to stop, I’m having way too much fun here.

Really looking forward to tonight’s session!