Shuffling

Writing is like shuffling dominoes: you start with some pieces and end up with rubbish.

But then you have something fixable, which is better than nada.

What follows is more shuffling:

Mechanics of the story? Was he seating and now he's outside the house? How did that happened?

Time of day? I had a character having breakfast at 9 p.m., which is not that bad, but still...

What about the sense of smell? A girl enters a fish packing factory, but it doesn't stink.

More shuffling.

Should she cry before she says, "He died," or after? Does it make sense?

Oh, the wonders of writing.

After all this shuffling, I take the story to a critique group.

I get frowns and blank stares, signaling some parts of the story are still buried somewhere inside my brain, refusing to leave. I take a million notes.

And then, again, more shuffling.

Now the tale is patchwork. Still rubbish. Crap. Caca.

So, like good whine, I let the story breathe. Pretty much, I try to forget it.

Then I revisit and, finally, fix it so it makes sense.

Sort of... well, at least I try.