"...nothing else matters..."

Of course, the trickiest thing about this "writing a post a day" malarkey is that some days I'll not really have a clue what to write. Yes, I have a list of things that I could write about, but I'm not really inspired by any of them right now at this moment. And in any case, there is another thing I need to write that's somewhat more important, and unlike the daily stuff I write on here it'll get more than one draft, and it'll make a lot more sense - hopefully - than many of the things here. 

You see, today I am somewhat uninspired. I have an urge to write something, but no real notion of anything to actually write. And, given that I need to put something here that's really a bit of a problem. Now, you might be thinking here "hang on a minute; what's the fool wittering on about; he's clearly writing something." But, no... this is just a load of old waffle. 

And, again some might say that hey... no change there, then, but at least the other waffle had a purpose. This is me putting one word after the other and hoping they make sense. I guess that's true of all writing; it's one word after the other, each hoping to make some sense when read in order. Sometimes it works, other times it doesn't, and it's often when there's a bit of distance between what you've written and when you go back and read it that you can adequately judge whether it's any good or not.

Yesterday, I went back to reading a bit of a story I'd written a few months ago. It's really just a single scene that is a snapshot of one of the characters. Re-reading it there were several places I really winced at the poor phrasing, and instantly thought "oooh, no, that's gotta change". But then there were moments in it that made me think "yeah... that's spot on!" So, I changed a few bits, and left some as it was and ended up with a scene that's a bit better than it was.  Really, I've no idea how it fits in to the overall scheme of things, or even if it'll even end up in the finished thing, but it does help to give me a handle on this character. Oooh, people will hate him. And rightly so.

Whether this is the right way to write, I don't know; getting a great moment, writing it, and then working out how that scene fits in to the greater picture. I do keep doing this. There's another story for which pretty much all I've written is one scene (well, there's a few other bits and bobs, but this scene is about 75% of what's written). This one I know will end up in the finished thing, as it's a pivotal moment; if you're talking classic three act structure it's the bit at the end of act 1. And for this one I'm pretty sure I have at least half the thing mapped out in my mind. Although I've no idea where it ends, there's several possible ways, but the way I see it the more I write of this one, the more of an idea of how to end it. The characters... ah, they're coming to life in my head a bit more, I'm starting to understand them and how they'd react, and when they'd be sensible, and when they'd do daft silly things, and when they're put through the wringer, and... oh, it is exciting. I'll probably change my mind several times how it ends, but when the time comes I'll know it's right... 

Now, enough of this waffle, which I think eventually found a point, I've got other things to write...