Write a scene. Stop. Face the cliff of not knowing how to make the next scene work. Make a few tentative pawing motions at it. Stop and stare, unable to proceed. Turn around in place, take a break, whine. Then go after it again...and suddenly you are over and on the next stair.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
So I'm stuck on the scene I'm calling "love and rockets." One of the last major characters needs to get introduced, and there's a bit of romance in the air, and it happens as I am pulling her slowly into a Blitz Experience of her own...and I want to do it under the V1 and V2 at the Imperial War Museum.
I just can't figure out how to time the meet-up with the museum conservators, the explanation of why they aren't digging that day, the explanation of what Steve is up to, and the word from Whiskers that I want to have as a teaser ending.
Probably means it is time for a walk. I feel so logy anyhow. What with it looking like there's another four weeks of this, I need to get into an exercise routine to make up for not being at work. Pity I'm feeling too unfocused to get any violin in.
(Would probably help if I wasn't facing yet another day of nothing but practicing long bows and silent bowing).
***
On a sort of plus side, I found the folder where I kept all the maps and brochures from my trip to London. Which according to the entrance ticket to HMS Belfast, was in November of 2002.
Looks like I did the Imperial War Museum -- which at the time had the Trench Experience and the Blitz Experience and a previous version of the Holocaust exhibition -- the Belfast of course, the Cris Wren Monument (all 311 steps), the Tower, The Globe (near Southwark Bridge), and Westminster Abbey. Plus my hotel was Novotel London Tower Bridge, Pepys Street, right smack middle of the Square Mile.
***
Best part about doing a second novel is that I'm not concerned. I mean, sure I'm stuck at the moment, but I know I'll get over it.
And I'm still excited about this project. I still don't really like Penny. She isn't the character I wanted or the character I'd have made if all the choices were within the book and not extraneous to it.
But she works. There's lots of good hooks on her and the kinds of stories I could tell with her. That could be a problem. I hope I don't get so excited about the Ghost Town book or the Paris book or the Kyoto book so much I have trouble staying on this one.
And her progression is a lot slower than I planned. Eventually she is going to be the adventurer-archeologist. In this book, though, she seems almost further behind. Still feeling lost and confused and overwhelmed in a foreign land, still essentially monolingual, still not ready to accept the mantle of hero.
If I do have a qualm on this book, though, it is that the way I outlined it there's still too much front-loading going on. There's a lot I want to set up so the story can get rolling, and I've chosen to do it within archaeological/historical settings. I'm working, more and more, on her not sharing with the reader, so the focus can be on the tensions and conflicts that are going to move the story forward.
But on the other hand, name-dropping Lady Jane and Lord Nelson got me to 6,500 words and that means I only have to do that ten more times...
***
A nice walk, a bit of (really boring) violin practice, and more scrabbling at the stair. And it finally came. So late I only had enough left of the evening to put down 229 words -- but they are words that put the scene on track.
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