Not Exactly Writer's Block

It wasn't writer's block so much as writer's fatigue. Basically a week went by without being able to add more to my large project, so I sat uninspired before my laptop. Often I add a paragraph, reshape some dialogue or a setting, or even skip down to work out a rough outline of the next pages. All DOA.

Then I felt a pull from an unexpected scene, one I had never even worked on, but it felt promising: what if I wrote a scene from the girlfriend's perspective about my protagonist? (Instead of my usual protagonist's perspective.) Focus on what she would be thinking and feeling (even though she's a minor presence in the "real" story I'm writing.) Maybe it would be their first date. A setting occurred to me that I hadn't planned. An unexpected reaction between the two lit my imagination.

The first date I had sketched out long ago was mild and predictable. This wasn't. His reaction to her surprised me in that first impression. I didn't see him as that romantic, even playful, perhaps hard to get. I was intrigued. This was worth exploring. Soon I had her two (unnamed) friends involved. Plus her mother's reaction to their pairing.

Honestly, I don't see this sequence going into my real story, but I'm writing it anyway. Maybe it will be key backgrounding that will give me crucial insights into my characters and their intertwined history. Probably I will only hint at this to readers of my real story, but that hardly matters. It's working. I'll keep writing it for another couple days and see what occurs - though I won't let it eat up an inordinate amount of my energy or become it's own story that sidelines my large project.

This lark is developing my back story, while pushing me to develop a new voice. Whether anyone else reads it or not hardly matters. I'll be a better writer because of it.

(Image taken from TripleCrit.com.)