Lego Hunt

For the last couple of days I've been reconstructing lego sets. Not putting them together, just digging through my bins of legos to bag them up with their directions to give them to a child who has leukemia. It's kind of like doing a jigsaw puzzle and I am a little over possessed in completing this task. I admit I'm compulsive when it comes to things like this, which is why it's been a few years since I set up the card table to do a jigsaw puzzle or cross-stitched.

But one thing I realized is that sometimes you just have to let it go. I'll be looking, digging, and looking some more for one single piece before I turn the page and begin the next stage. When I finally decide to give up, I make a mental note that I still need a certain brick and then turn the page. And usually within a few pages, I've found the elusive brick that I spent 15-20 minutes to no avail searching for.

Writing can be like that. Sometimes you just have to let go. Like I said last week, I'd been struggling with chapter 11 and this week, I just let go of what I wanted it to be (key words being, what I wanted). And once I stopped forcing it, the words came. Sometimes you just have to return to the base bricks of your story and let the character tell you where to go. In my case, it was letting Bix create an unblog, which enabled him to tell his story his way, which is how I began the book.

And sometimes, letting your brain take a break from the story altogether can be a good thing.
Since I've been consumed by legos for most of today, I'm hoping that the time off will be beneficial when I sit down to type in chapter 11 and wrap it off. We'll see if my theory holds true.