And I get scared but I'm not crawling on my knees

I told myself I could not blog until I'd finished the scene I intended to write today. But it's at nearly 2,000 words and still not over yet, so in the interest of giving myself a breather, here I am.

Nearly 2,000 words is actually right about 1,750, and honestly, I wasn't sure I'd get more than 10 when I started out this morning. I have researched everything in this scene that needed to be researched. And then some. I knew what needed to be written--I've been seeing bits and pieces of the scene for days now. I even knew the first line. The scene was THERE. I was READY.

And I just could not get myself to sit down with it this morning. OK, granted, the morning started with getting up at 7am, checking email to find out that school was canceled for the day, and sending everyone back to bed, myself included. So it was 10 before I got back out of bed, got dressed, had some breakfast, and even attempted to wander back to my desk. But as soon as I sat down...  Stage fright. That's what it was like. This is the first big scene of the book--everything else I've written so far will eventually be incorporated later in the story. This will be the scene that has those magic first five pages. This is the scene that launches all those later scenes. And I think I just let myself over think it.

But no. I don't think I over thought it. I believe the amount of planning and research I've put into it was absolutely necessary. So it wasn't over thinking so much as just forgetting to turn off the thinking and planning portion of my brain and turn on the part that takes all those facts and structures and makes magic with them. So yeah. We're back to stage fright. The scene is so big and so clear in my mind that I was afraid I could never do it justice.

At which point, once I'd realized I was falling into that trap again, I was able to remind myself that no scene EVER comes out as perfectly on paper as it appears in your head. But it sure as hell comes out a lot clearer than if you never write it at all. So I took some deep breaths and put on my Crowmaker soundtrack. And once I sat down and forced myself through the first sentence and then the first paragraph, it got easier. Like it always does. And it started flowing. Like it always does. And the muse handed me some lovely poetic bits crafted from hard-earned research facts. Like it always does.

Someday it will take me less than two hours to talk myself into remembering how this always works. Someday.

But in the meantime, yes. Almost 2,000 words on today's scene.  If you average it out over the research time I put in on Friday, that's still almost 1,000 words/day, and I don't count myself done for the day just yet. I can live with that, I believe.

Edit:  Final word count on the scene, as of 12:30am, was 2,750.  Whew.