Over the weekend, I caught up, on the reading at least, in Holly Lisle’s How to Think Sideways: Career Survival Course For Writers. It’s nice to be able to download the new lesson and read it on the same day.

Verdegris, however, is still in its beginnings, and I’m having to fight the urge to back over and over previous scenes to correct, remove, change or otherwise edit the heck out of what I’ve already written. “Oh, but this scene needs to do more!” “This one is slowing things down.” “This feels too much like the scene following.” In otherwords, endless methods for procrastination that feel like writing. I need to just get the story written.

Holly’s lessons on middles are encouraging. I especially like the one on taking stock of your story somewhere in the middle to see if it’s headed in the direction you wanted it to, whether it’s changed shape so much that it’s actually a different story than you planned, and whether that’s okay with you. The stuff about putting “surgical marks” on your story to plan for later edits should keep me from getting overly distracted by perpetual revision as I work. Kind of wish I’d read it sooner.