How do you climb that mountain when you are look up at it from the bottom and it seems so big? You made the long trek to the mountain. You know you have to scale to the top and then work your way back down the other side. At the bottom of the other side is the end of your journey and the golden gates you had been searching for all along. Yet, the mountain looms before you, daunting in its size and seeming to grow bigger as you stare at it.
That is what goes through my mind as I try to work on the current chapter of my book. I have been working on this chapter for a long time. Of course my busy work schedule has also added a barrier to working on it . I have arrived to the chapter where much of the emotional, pinnacle secrets that one of the characters held close are revealed. These secrets will then lead to the emotional rift in the relationship and act as a catalyst for the main action. The chapter and its events are the stepping stones to the main action of the story. That is a lot of pressure for one little chapter and one little character.
When I was young a group of us would all play together. One of those times we all lay down on the ground and stared up into the beautiful blue sky. I noticed as I stared at it the sky felt as if it were getting closer and at the same time getting bigger. It would make me dizzy watching it seemingly change before my eyes. Yet, nothing changed but my own perspective. It was my own feeling of smallness and inadequacy at something so big that made it grow.
Recently, when I was talking with a friend, I was commenting that I felt as if I had writer's block and did not know how I was ever going to finish. I began discussing the book and its theme and realized that I could describe the action, the characters and even the ending. So, what was holding me back from writing this one chapter? The emotion and the idea that it was the start of the main action. I made the idea so much bigger in my head that even the words seemed small to describe and say what I wanted. I turned the one scene into a mountain when really it was just a small hill that leads to another hill. I was thinking of the scene as it related to the ultimate action. I was not looking at it as just another scene that led to the another path and another scene.
In my description to my friend I also made the realization that the emotional action between the two characters who are sisters was also causing some of the reticence for writing it. I have no real problem writing fight scenes between two sisters. After all, I have two sisters of my own and plenty of experience in fighting with them to recall. I have plenty of experience in arguing our differences very loudly and forcefully. Yet, these two characters are part of me. Each girl is a part of who I am, one more than the other. It was more like I was putting myself and my own fallacies onto the page than that of a character in my head. Writing is a great therapist until what you fear most is the actual written out form of yourself. This is not like placing your innermost thoughts in a journal. It is more like opening up your head and letting the world see all the crazy synapses you have going on inside.
So, the question is how do you look at the mountain and see it isn't as big as you think? Frankly, I do not have a definitive answer for that question other than you take a deep breath, find a quiet moment, and just start to write. It may start slow and still feel a bit as if you were scaling Mt. Kilimanjaro but the top of that writing mountain will appear closer with each word. Besides, there is always editing and rewriting. Just get the original thoughts down initially and you can go back and change the way it moves later. In order to get to the next chapter you have to take it one word at a time and get through this one first. If you have the framework of this chapter done you can always change the flow and design through editing. Release some of the pressure. Lighten your load because there will be other mountains to scale in the future and more words to push you forward to the top.
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