MUG Monday: The Blank Page

Hey, looky there! Abby wrote a blog post. A scheduled one even. Craziness. ;)

Okay, so some of you know I'm rewriting the first half of Embrol. Again. It really is never-ending. I cut 43,000 hard-earned words last week. Painful, but necessary. And I think it's getting better, closer to where it needs to be. Never mind that I've thought this before (more than once), and yet, here I am, doing another rewrite. *sigh*

Anyway.

I've been stuck for a couple of weeks on one scene. Of course, it's an action scene. For me, those scenes always require a lot of revision. I always put in too much emotion or too much detail or both and totally screw up the pacing in the first draft. My perfectionist brain can't handle this. Just the idea of writing an action scene makes it shut down and then, somehow, I'm checking my email. Or Facebook. Or anything besides working on that blasted action scene.

I tried to sit down and force myself to write it. I knew how I wanted it to go, so that wasn't the issue. It was just getting my fingers to type what I knew would be horrible, horrible words. I couldn't tarnish my previously "perfect" draft with such an awful scene.

The solution?

I opened a blank document and told myself it was okay if I screwed it up because it never had to touch the real document if I hated it. Three days later, I have a shiny new action scene that, at least for the moment, I think turned out pretty good. Such a simple solution. Too bad it took me so long to figure it out. :)

What about you? Any types of scenes that trip you up? What do you do to get unstuck?

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