Lost

The last couple of writing sessions I got lost in the story. I can tell because when I look at my watch to see how near I am to my normal stopping time, I’ve been surprised it’s that late. That’s a good sign, at least in my thinking. If I’m getting lost in the story as I write it, then hopefully that translates into the same for whoever reads it, whenever that is. I’ve mentioned this before, but the opposite is true. If I’m writing the story and become bored, then the reader will also be bored. What does that look like when I’m writing? I can usually tell a few different ways. One is that I feel like I don’t really want to write, which means the creativity level is low, which means the words I put on the page are like going through an exercise. Sometimes I do it anyway just to write, but it means I’ll end up throwing away some pages. Another way to detect boredom is when I fire up the laptop and don’t remember what I last wrote. If my story is that uninspiring, it’s time to make some changes. Yet another way is where I detect a situation has gone on too long without change. In other words, I’m spinning my wheels, treading water, whatever you want to call it, but there’s no forward movement in the narrative. That gets boring as a writer and definitely mind-numbing for a reader. I want to be lost in the story, forgetting the world and its craziness for a brief period of time. When I’m writing, I want to be so far into the scene and the characters that I experience those a-ha moments, the rare instances where I pause and say, “Wow, that was good,” knowing eventual readers will feel the same. That’s why I enjoy getting lost.