Writer's Pause

I slept in too late today.  The coffee isn't good.  I accidentally oversweetened it.  My church kids have Dean Martin's "Mambo Italiano" replaying through my head all hours of the day.  We served spaghetti to 90 people at our fundraiser yesterday.

I guess I've already hit that "pause".  I won't say "block" because that's just not true.  I still have dozens of ideas swerving around Dean Martin's catchy chorus in my head, and if they keep at this pace, they may just force him over a cliff somewhere up ahead and take the lead.

I am surprised that, even without a full-time job, it's difficult to make time to write 1,667 words per day (that's what the leaders of NaNoWriMo recommend to keep you on track for your 50,000 word goal).  I mean, the writing itself comes fast when you've got an idea in mind, but...otherwise...

I'm doing something I've never done before in regards to my writing.  I am writing from the beginning to the end, period.  They say that you can - even that you should - write your climax scenes first, or your character-building scenes, but that has never worked for me.  All that happens is I end up with these gorgeous, juicy, characterization-filled pages that go nowhere.  I mean it.  I have loads of unfinished work that is just clever exchange between characters.  Witty, informative, plot-driven, but...well...stunted.  This time, I am not allowing myself to "jump ahead" and work the "fun" stuff.  I am plodding along like a fat old unwieldy dinosaur, determined to get where I'm going and not skip steps along the way. 

Okay, the dinosaur image was a little strange, but that's what I am picturing.  A wobbly, ancient stegosaurus, great gnarled head down, whuffling along the dusty ground, single-mindedly putting one humongous foot in front of the other in the simple effort of walking forward.

I'm a dinosaur!  I'm a novel-writing dinosaur!  A curious and adorable, determined, novel-writing dinosaur!  Like this:

Yes.  Exactly.  Now what was I talking about?