As it Happens

Sometimes creative work is like that. Chasing things in little circles and feeling like you are getting nowhere. Then you look at just the right angle and suddenly all the stuff that didn't make sense...does.

It all slammed together as I was refilling my water bottle at work. So much I had to resort to my "BBC" method to capture it. Which was probably from a news program called "As it Happens," but "BBC" is shorter to say. What I mean is, when you've got six ideas to write down before you forget them, write down just a few words on each that will allow you to find your place again.

So anyhow. I changed what I was doing with one character, moving from a foil to a flawed mentor. And everything fell into place. From the overall emotional arc to how to get what seemed to be six incompatible things happening in the climax.

And more. It opened things up to where I can put back in things I thought I wouldn't be able to use. Like Cathedral. Even the Bog Effect. The dupondius.

And the best part? It doesn't actually over-write most of the work I've done over the past few weeks. Most of that is still there. What I did was look at things the right kind of sideways, more-or-less the same basic facts but a different narrative constructed from them.

Which is pretty much how history works.