Getting from A to B is hard, but Aha! moments make it all worthwhile

Writing is hard. Sitting down and staring at the screen and not knowing how to get from point A to B to C is frustrating, and that's when I know what points A,B and C are!

But it's the how-to-get-there that is truly the hardest part of writing. It's the daily grind part, the what else can I find to do so I don't have to write a page of how to get from A to B and then realize its crap and delete it all. It's the staring at the screen for a half hour without typing a single word because I really DO NOT know how to get from one plot point to another.

This past week for instance I have been trying to write a single chapter in which a major plot element happens and really pushes the story forward. But I've been struggling with it because although I know the main gist of it -- my main character talks to someone and learns some very interesting information -- I don't actually know how that plays out. And its very frustrating.

But I keep going back to the computer and if I can get 300 usable words out of an hour's work I'm happy.

Getting from plot point to plot point is the bulk of the work of a writer's job, at least its the bulk of work for this writer. So I suppose in some ways it's also the most fulfilling. When I've finally finished writing a chapter that I'd had no idea how I was going to write (other than the main plot element) I do feel like I've accomplished something major and I always pat myself on the back.

But it's not those moments that make writing fun. What's fun are the Aha! moments. The moments when I'm driving, or washing the dishes or talking to a friend and suddenly it hits me. "This" has to happen in the book. "This" explains perfectly why so-and-so feels a certain why. "This" is the perfect location for the scene where...

It's those moments of revelation that will enrich my story and make it better that make writing so fun. It's when the story takes on a life of its own, and I can't tell it what to do anymore (at least not on the larger scale) and instead the story tells me what will work and what won't.

It's funny because I've read about these Aha! moments before, when I first started seriously contemplating writing a mystery and read some books about writing. Every author talked about how the story unfolded as they wrote and often went in different directions than expected. But somehow I never thought it applied to me. I had already outlined my idea. I thought I had all the main elements figured out. But low and behold after maybe a month or two of writing, ideas began popping up all the time. Each one was a revelation, a mini-epiphany. Each one gave me renewed energy and spurred me on to write more, get through the daily grind.

Now that I'm more than half way through my Aha! moments have slowed. I really do have all the main elements figured out. I mostly get smaller revelations at this point. Little aha! moments that help me with the daily grind, with getting from point to point with the least amount of wrestling with the scene to get it to do What I Want.

But I've still got one big Aha! moment coming. I still don't know quite how the final confrontation between Abi, my main character, and the "bad guy" is going to go. So I'm eagerly waiting for the story to reveal that to me in a blinding moment of Aha!

Until then, I'll keep putting one word after the other, slowly inching forward, moving from Point A to B to C and hoping for lots of little aha! moments and one big Aha!