People don't realize the extent to which the last week of the school year is hell for a high school teacher. (And if you teach a mix of seniors and underclassmen, it's two weeks of hell.)
But this blog is about writing, not about teaching. So let me talk about that. Once again I had the experience of finding a scene impossible to write until I realized that I was keeping a character from acting consistently with his motivations. It's freaky and awesome all at once how the story won't let itself be railroaded. If I'm doing something wrong, I just sit there, paralyzed, unable to write.
I had another cool (to me) experience last Friday. I was on a plane and hoping to take advantage of the time to get some writing done. This was when I realized that I had totally failed to consider my protagonist's mental state and motivation in the scene I was struggling with, and had the epiphany that made it possible. But I still wasn't ready to write. I needed to re-envision the scene now that I better understood how my protagonist was feeling. So I daydreamed, basically, trying to get in his head. Well, Chris, my protagonist, had just been through a pretty awful experience, something humiliating and heart-breaking. As I put myself in his shoes, I found myself becoming more outwardly angry and sad. Intellectually I knew these were not my emotions, but I found myself genuinely feeling Chris's, and I had this sudden realization of what I must look like if anybody happened to look my way--I bet it was scary!
Anyway, I'm probably the only person who finds that interesting, but that's the whole reason I started this blog. So I could gush about quasi-mystical experiences like that without boring anybody who might find him- or herself my captive audience. Those are the moments I'm finding astounding and rewarding. I need a blog label for the posts that have these rambling reflection. Maybe "gushical."
In other news: Fifteen days! Fifteen days until vacation! :)
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