Encore and the 2 Minute Warning

Last night I thought I was finished when I posted the blog.

Nope. Encore!

Instead of calling it a night, I found myself at the kitchen table with the drawing pad and another audio dose of Goapele’s Closer song whispering in my ear.  As much as I wanted to turn my brain off and watch some Sunday Night Football, I couldn’t keep my mind off the fact that I had to skip to the end of the book.  I ended up using the drawing book to summarize what I've written in the book.  Then I started asking myself questions in the drawing book.  The most important question was about how to get to the end of the book.  Clearly, going in chronological order wasn't going to get me there. 

That’s when I had bit of a burst of writing energy.  I started writing chapters from the end of the book that would rewind to the beginning.  This reverse order helped me because I felt like I was bringing point B closer to point A.  Perhaps this will end up something like a squeeze play in baseball.  In the end, reversing my writing order allowed me to write 4 more pages before I called it a night.

Today I found myself trying to catch the rhythm of the keystrokes while listening to Parliament’s Aqua Boogie.  There’s something about that driving bass line that gets me excited every time I hear it.  It’s one of those old funk anthems that will never get old to me.

While listening to the strange noises in the background of the song, I managed to jump to another location in the book and write 6 pages.  I discovered a new character who will help Wrinkles to overcome some of his issues.  There was plenty of dialogue and some humor involved.  I’ll probably go back over this part a little later to see if I can squeeze more humor out of it.

Overall, I’m really pleased with the progress I’m making.  While this continues to be the toughest book I’ve written, I think taking more of an unorthodox approach to writing has helped me to continue to make progress.  I am officially late in the 2^nd quarter and approaching the two minute warning.  52 pages and counting.

Steady!