Over the last couple weeks, I got distracted in my novel writing process. I went to New York, and I was busy, and then I worked on the novel, but it was hard to get back into it. Like putting on an old pair of boots.
This weekend, it clicked. Usually, there are a lot of voices in my head. Hurry up. You're not fast enough. You'll never finish. A cacophony that works against the creative process, to say the very least.
But I got over it. I forced myself to work slower, and so for a while I did, but when I took the time to get it right, I found that things moved faster. There's a very long and complicated scene that involves Vegas, poker, and luck, and there are other parts with robots, and dead men on trains, and fugue states, and I just stayed in the maze of it until it all started to make sense.
Yesterday, I rewatched part of "Raging Bull," my all-time favorite movie.
It was inspiring.
"Gimme a stage where this bull here can rage."
Maybe sometimes you just have to find the right stage upon which to stand. Or pour enough ice down your pants. Or beat the shit out of yourself. To get it right. Finally.
[Image and title via the always beautiful This Isn't Happiness.]
