Lucky

I am one of the lucky ones at the moment. The temps here are in the 80s. (I’m a heat wimp, so that seems hottish, but nothing like so many others). I’d rather be out on the Oregon coast right now though. Course remember that in the dead of winter I’m often too many degrees below zero, so it’s not like I don’t pay for this weather.

How is it possible that I just ate dinner and I’m hungry already? I want ice cream. Vats of it. That’s probably a sign of something.

I actually committed words to a project today. They are the beginning words and likely will change, but at least it’s a place to start. I’m good with that. Now to produce more. But this is epic fantasy, and tends to be something I write more slowly, where I have to research even the smallest detail. For instance, a caul is a kind of a hat. It’s a peculiar kind of a hat, though the one I’m writing about doesn’t have any material in it. It’s tremendously important in the worldbuilding for reasons I can’t explain at the moment, but on the surface, it’s just a hat.

Now here’s the thing about writing. You can’t let yourself get bogged down in little details. They will derail your writing so fast it will make your head spin. Yet at the same time, you have to nail the details in order to make the story work. Some writers will leave notes to themselves to find things out and keep going. Other writers will dig until they find the right detail. I am usually one of the latter, but mostly on details that truly matter. I usually know what those are, because they tend to reach out roots into a lot of scenes and characters. Believe it or not, that hat does. Not because of any inherent quality to it, but because it relates to another important element of the world that is completely fundamental. I know, sounds bizarre. It’s a hat, for dog’s sake. But there you have it.

I’m wondering about the rest of the writers out there. How do you work?