I did it! First day on the new schedule, and I smashed my goal. I wrote 3,225 words and three scenes. Going from 7348 over a six day period to 3225 in just one day–that makes me feel really great. My total is now 10, 573 words.

I worked on Chapter Three today and wrote three scenes: Jason, Sonny/Alexis, Laura/Bobbie, and this was the first time I felt like I came close to nailing the voices and the patterns I wanted to hit. I said I was having trouble finding my groove with this story, so I needed to do something to change the mood.

I went through the scenes planned for this chapter and instead of plotting them simply by story beats (this happens, then this happens), I wrote a short synopsis of what the characters would be feeling. Then I pulled out a book that has always helped me dig into my writing more deeply, The Emotion Thesaurus by Angela Ackerman and Becca Puglisi. It basically lists a bunch of emotions, gives you some cues for phsyical, internal, and mental responses, and helps stimulate the writing. I definitely recommend it if you get stuck. They’ve written a couple of a good writing resource books.

So today was a good day 🙂 And to celebrate, here is an excerpt from today’s chapter:

He’d woken up from the accident with brain damage he’d long accepted. He didn’t dream the way other people did—the way Robin and Carly, even Sonny had described with dreams and worlds that felt so real that it was disorientating when someone woke up.

He had a good memory for details, but not for visuals. He had never been great at picturing people in his head, at recognizing photographs, though he’d gotten better at pictures over the years, and now—

Now it looked like Jason could think, even fantasize, in images. Everywhere he looked, he saw colors and thought of her.

In New Orleans, he’d gone to the French Quarter, and he could actually see Elizabeth laughing with him, dragging him to have his portrait painted by one of the artists that populated the area. In Texas, he’d gone to San Antonio and thought about her attempting the spicy cuisine, her face flushed, eyes sparkling.

He didn’t know why he could think of her so clearly with him all the time—why everything about this trip felt so…wrong without Elizabeth. Jason had been good at putting things away. Even when it hurt, he could get through his life.

But walking away from Elizabeth hurt every bit as much as giving up Michael, and there were moments when Jason could feel Elizabeth with him so strongly that looking at the empty space next to him felt like punch in the gut.