Meat and Bones

I think I figured out what my problem is writing-wise right now: I'm worried about the meat when there is no skeleton.

Sounds ominous, no? Well, allow me to explain, and this has nothing to do with my love of horror fiction.

My whole process is built generally around the idea that what I'll do first is build a skeleton, then I'll worry about fleshing out the meat. This generally goes for any idea, scene, chapter, what have you. What I've been doing is worrying about the meat before there is even a skeleton. Too much known of what I want to tell, too many ideas and scenes *planned* where I should be allowing the story to flow and move freely.

If there is anything I learned from editing the first novel, it is that one of the kindest things you can do to a story is cut it. You really cannot be married to any sentence, to a certain wording, because inevitably the perfect words have not yet been found. I'm not saying this for every sentence--my, one would go mad! But there are things one will think they can never part with, until they realize the reader will get the gist of it and, frankly, that's all they'll need. The same has to go for ideas, I'm sure, where I'm also well acquainted with the fact that the characters often grow a will of their own and the story will mold with their motivations and how they react to the circumstances presented them. I have to give them the opportunity to do that. I have to be willing to bend. There has to be some compromise, and I'm being far too rigid in my treatment of this, especially in these early stages where just getting things going is hardest.

A few chapters in, however shaky they may be to start, I'll have a good flow, and there will be days I can't get sat in front of the computer soon enough and that I will have to practically be pried away from it. And, yes, it's frustrating now but forcing it isn't working. I just have to relax and keep telling myself, 'soon'. Soon, I will reach that easier, more pleasant stage. Soon, scenes will come with ease and Reinbert can have us all laughing again. :)