Yesterday I found myself staring at a blank screen.

See, on Scrivener each scene gets its own space and when I start a new scene, the screen is blank. And the last time I worked on the WiP, I stopped before I wrote a single word of the new scene. When I saw that blank screen, it scared me so much I just stared at it for a while. Would start to write something, change my mind, start again and stop, over and over and over again.

I have faced the blank screen before. I do it for every flash or short story I start. But yesterday it scared me more than it usually does.

It wasn’t writer’s block (not sure I believe in writer’s block anyway.) I knew what was going to happen in the scene, the characters, how they were going to react to each other, the layout of the room.  But I couldn’t get it on paper (screen).

Finally, I decided change what it shows me so I could see everything I’d written so far. That helped. I actually wrote a couple paragraphs. Of course I dumped half of what I wrote in the trash file (as opposed to deleting it entirely).

Managed a 100 something words before the headache got so bad I couldn’t write anymore.Better than nothing, but still, it’s not good.

I think the lesson I’ve learned here is to write a few lines in the next scene before stopping for the night.