I should be writing

The title of the post says it all.

I should be writing.

And I am. In the way that this book is being written.

To explain: I have never written a book like this before. I am a fairly linear writer. The story comes out of my head in the order that it will appear. Usually. This book is quite defiant, though, in that it doesn't want to be linear in my head at all. It wants me to write a scene but it doesn't necessarily want to be in the place that I have written it. I am constantly cutting and pasting, moving bits of text around to find where it fits best.

I am also spending a lot of time thinking about what is going to happen next, or what should have happened before, or what's going to happen at the end. So when I "should be writing," much of the time I am "thinking about what I'm going to write."

I have finally hit 40,000 words, though, which means I am about halfway done. I have two months to go. But the book isn't the only thing on the agenda this summer. I have a daughter who has just graduated high school, we have just hosted a graduation party, we have to start organizing what she's going to need to bring to school. We are heading to New York City for the Boomer Esaison Foundation's Run to Breathe in a couple of weeks; we have a trip planned to Montreal in August.

So I grab at moments to sit and write, move more text around, see if the story is jelling, even though it's not linear and I don't know where it's going to end up. Except that I do. Know where it's going to end. Or at least I know what the big reveal will be at the end, or close to the end. Or maybe in the next page I write.

That's the way this book is going. I have no idea what's going to happen from one day to the next.

So I should be writing.