So a while back, I had this idea that once I sold a book or two, I'd automatically know what I was doing. Writing books would come so easily, and so, so naturally to me. I'd sit down at the computer and just pour the scenes on to the page, smiling merrily and birds would sing outside my window, blah blah blah.

Yeah. Not so much. Here's how my weekend of writing went.

Stare at page, wait for inspiration.

Make breakfast, wash dishes, consider cleaning house. This is all procrastination. Settle for watching random videos on YouTube instead.

Write 30 words. Contemplate crying.

I must be writing in the wrong POV! Start a new file. Write two sentences.

Gnash teeth. This doesn't sound right either.

Take time off of writing to watch: Curling, Women's Ice Skating (on DVR), Aliens, UP, Moon, more Curling, and Ice Hockey.

Go back to computer, write a page. Am convinced of my brilliance once more. Time to switch POVs with the scene break!

Thirty minutes (and 200 words) later, no longer convinced of my brilliance. This POV feels so wrong.

Maybe I need to switch projects. I switch to an old project, but it's not the one I want to be working on. I rattle off a few pages, realize that I'm probably going to have to rip them right back out, and re-open the document that is bugging me so much. Back to square one.

Go back to the plan to do the original 1st person POV. Try again. This time for real - starting now!

...or starting right after WHITEOUT. And some Curling. And some Hockey.

Seriously - that was how my whole weekend went.  And it's not the first time that it's happened to me -- it's happened a lot lately. My books need to start with a clearly drawn opening scene, and if I don't have it, I can't move forward until I do. I always pooh-poohed people in the past when they told me this, but I'm a victim of it as well.  I've learned to trust my instincts over time, and if I'm constantly going back and rewriting the first chapter, it's not working for me. There's something wrong with it.

At least I'm smart enough to recognize it now, right?

Anyhow, after Sunday proved just as fruitless as Saturday, I took the rest of the evening off and just thought about my story. Thought about why it wasn't working. Why weren't my characters fun? Not FUNNY - the funny comes naturally if everything is working as planned. But the story wasn't fun - it was dead on the page. Boring. I didn't even enjoy re-reading it myself. And if I can't get lost in it, how can I possibly expect anyone else to?

Then, of course, it hit me. I'd included a dark storyline that put my heroine in danger right at the beginning of the story. And this is a story that needs to start out light. Why couldn't I move that plot piece to the middle of the book? Did I have enough conflict to start the book with the minor conflicts? And after thinking about it...I realized I was pursuing the wrong conflict.

Just like that, the rest of the story fell into my head somewhere about 10:45 last night, when I was laying in bed. I sprung up out of bed and ran to my desk to write notes to myself for about twenty minutes. My husband is used to this by now, so he kept sleeping.

But now I'm excited about my story again! My new outline is perfect, the opening scene is fun, and I think I have it down right now. I'm going to go home and scrap the 6k (weep) that I already have written, but I think I'm moving forward correctly now, and I'm thrilled.

(And nobody probably cared to read about all that but me, but yay me for finally figuring it out!)