The ideal writing state for me, is to hit a flow state where the words come easily and I lose track of time as I’m writing. Yesterday, I was fortunate enough to hit that state.
It was a far cry from the previous day when every word was a struggle.
The difference for me for Day 8 was, I had some time to think about a few of the big scenes I wanted to write. I had a fun idea for a scene and decided to work through it. To my delight, I actually ran out of writing time before I finished the scene.
That means I have a place to pick up from for Day 9.
It’s always nice to have a writing prompt. We’ll see if I can achieve flow again.
The fun scene
I am working on book five of my Mik Murdoch, Boy Superhero series. In every book I’ve tried to advance Mik’s growth as a person and as a hero/superhero. Part of that growth has been showing Mik get his powers and learn how to use them.
Some of the challenge doing that is getting it to fit the story. Not always easy to do.
I had a great plan where Mik has opportunity to work on his newest powers (hint, he has more than one superpower received at different times). This was my chance to get creative and I got to have a lot of fun with it.
Odd powers
When I conceived the story of Mik, I wanted to have him receive powers that are…unconventional. He has grown up reading comic books and dreams of having typical powers like super strength, flight and/or things like Spider-man might have.
Mik’s first ability (spoiler alert) is sensing emotions. Over time he uses his creativity to extend how he uses those powers. I won’t say what his new powers are but they are equally obscure. It will take a lot of imagination to do more than the basics but I can already see so many possibilities. Mik may very well grow his powers to be more inline with what he has always wanted.
The biggest struggle
Time is always hard to come by. As an example of the demands on my time, my typical day looks a bit like this – day job (9 hours), meals (1 hours), sleep (8 hours), family time (2 hours), exercise (1 hour), hygiene (1 hour). That means without wasting any time, I only have 2 hours of potential time remaining to write.
That might sound like sufficient time, but it also assumes I don’t waste any of that time. Highly unlikely for any of us to do. So, as I said, time is hard to come by.
