My Favorite Places: Lake Mayfield
Mayfield Lake in Mossyrock, Washington -- Photo by Pat Bean
“I learned never to empty the well of my writing, but always to stop when there was still something there in the deep part of the well, and let it refill at night from the springs that fed it.” – Ernest Hemingway.
NaNoWriMo Update, 12,512 words.
Very difficult writing today. I kept thinking of all the changes I wanted to do to what I had already written. My first half hour of writing yielded only 10 new words, because I went back and did a bit of editing. Since I always overwrite, a lot of words got chopped. I had to slap my hands to stop it.
Part of the problem getting started today was that I ended writing yesterday with a finished scene and wasn’t quite sure where to go next. I finally asked my main character what she was going to do. She then fixed herself a bowl of soup and took it and the local paper out on her ocean-front deck to read and think. I had already established that she talks her ideas over with the dog “of uncertain lineage” that she inherited when her grandmother died.
I now find in addition to establishing a character chart, I also need a timeline chart. I couldn’t remember this morning whether the murder had occurred three or four days earlier.
But when I finally started writing, it went well. I started writing at 6:15 a.m. and had a little over 2,000 words written before noon. And today I left a place to start for tomorrow.
Pat Bean's blog 
I have to write til I’m finished. Otherwise, it keeps me up at night. Then re-fill the well. But I think the method of leaving it hanging with some left over is probably a better one because it primes the pump the next time around.
Leaving something unfinished seems to work best for me. But the best thing that works for me is early mornings. After 4 p.m. nothing works wells.
Keep writing … Pat Bean https://patbean.wordpress.com