Decided to continue from where I was. I vaguely remembered telling myself that I needed to get a grip on each little piece as I progressed. I thought I'd made a note to myself about this in an earlier entry and tried to find it, but I must need to redo the blog format or something, because I couldn't find anything.

Anyhow, I did skip a very wee tiny bit, and dove into a scene just slightly beyond the chapter beginning (beginning of chapter 3). By the end of today's writing session I had the next big confusing mass of stuff strung out enough that I could look at it, and now it's tentatively divided into chunks that I can wrap my mind around. Looks like the mass o' stuff is perhaps four chapters? We'll see. I know that the very wee tiny bit will actually be a chapter of its own, after I figure out what I want to do with it.

I guess this must be one way I operate: if I don't understand something, I try to break it down into smaller and smaller chunks till I get something I can understand. I know this drives other writers nuts when I talk to them about their own work and I keep asking annoying questions. But I'm not trying to be annoying, I'm trying to understand the pieces so I can wrap my mind around the whole.

Was discussing with some writer friends the fact that whenever we are struggling with a problem and find a fix, we automatically assume that fix must be the golden key that will enable every other struggling writer to solve a current problem and move forward. We're so relieved and triumphant that we want to share the good news and ease everyone else's path. I am trying to be more mindful of this, because it's not helpful when people do it to me and their golden key doesn't work for where I'm at. But it's hard not to generalize your own process, especially when you have been toiling away and finally feel that you've learned something useful.