.

I have been sitting on this chapter (from “The First Five Pages” by Noah Lukeman) for weeks now. The book sits there taunting me. Taunting, taunting, knock, knock, knocking on my office door.

 I am almost done the book, but I just can’t seem to make myself do the exercises on this one. I think I am burned out on keeping fixing and tweaking the layers of my ms.

Plus one of the exercises is to go through and ask what my goal was when I wrote each chapter. Goal? What? I was supposed to have a goal? Then I am supposed to break down the whole thing layer by layer and see if I reached my goal or if I strayed and whether it works if I did stray. Well, hell. Maybe if I was back in university writing one of my many sociology essays, but in fiction, I just don’t work that way. The whole book is a stray. It strayed out of my head and through my fingers, appearing on the screen of my computer. Goal. Sheesh.

 “Do all your sentences progress with focussed intention to comprise a paragraph?” I think I need a drink. And not tea and not a mocha. I need something stronger from the cupboard above the fridge. That or I need to put this chapter away and move on. Maybe when these sentences and ideas scare me less, I can come back to it.

I mean, it is great advice–if you are on your first draft and not your 80 bazillion-kazillionth and you just want the story to die, die, die! Go gently into that good night! Go! Flee! Skedaddle! Get sold so I can stop thinking about you already!