Brick Wall: 1, Me: 0

Brick walls hurt. Especially when they pop up out of nowhere and you run face-first into them.

I’ve been happily writing away, feeling pretty chuffed with myself as one scene morphed neatly into the next—thinking, “Yeah, I’ve got this!” The squad was talking, the words were flowing, and I was riding that sweet, sweet momentum high.

But then my muse slammed on the brakes.
Red flag waving. Sirens blaring. Chaos.
(Mind you, I think she’s been waving that flag for a while, but I’ve been ignoring her—because I’m a numpty like that.)

“What the hell?!” I shriek. “We can’t stop now!”
The squad is pitching a royal fit—like a bunch of demons on my shoulders, all egging me on:

“Ignore her! She’s just being dramatic!”
“Keep going! Get us on the page!”
“Finish the bloody scene already!”

And I nearly did.
But then—sigh—due diligence reared its annoying little head.

So like the obedient scribbler I am, I stopped. I took stock. I re-read.

And then I screamed internally:

I HATE MY LIFE.

Because in my excitement about everything happening with the squad...
I somehow missed the fact that nothing is actually happening.

Groan.

Eighty percent of what I’d written? Into the bin.
The muse was right. (The smug cow.)
The plot was skipping merrily through scenes that lacked any actual weight.
No stakes. No momentum. No structure.

And now the squad’s still yelling, my brain’s on fire, and I’ve got a full-blown creative cramp of epic proportions.

So here I sit.
Mug of tea in one hand.
Deleted scenes in the other.
Trying to figure out how not to throttle my own characters.

’Til next time.

Brick wall: 1, me: 0.