Yesterday afternoon started off wonderfully.  I put the boys down for an early nap (they were both a little grumpy – must have been something in the air) and sat down to get some work done on chapter three.  All was going swimmingly for about a page and a half and then…apathy settled in.  My mind began to drift, the slightest noise was a disturbance worthy of hopping online, and I think I spent a good twenty minutes staring off into space looking at absolutely nothing.

Not wanting my rare and peaceful afternoon to be a complete waste, I decided to force myself to write, something I am notoriously awful at and about.  Explanation: I am terrible about making myself do things, especially things I’m apathetic about.  Also, when I posted it to authonomy, The Lokana Chronicles received many comments about pacing because I hopped from scene to scene to scene.  The problem?  I quit writing the scene well before I should have.  As a result, I spent a lot of my revision time adding onto existing scenes and praying I wasn’t just adding fluff.

Since the story wasn’t flowing well, I decided to work on the pitch.  After my recent experience with GUTGAA and all the work I’ve put into my query for The Lokana Chronicles, I wanted to put my newly-honed skills to use and see what happened.  I’ve been feeling pretty good about what I’ve been writing so far, so I hammered out a pitch and let the Alliance of Worldbuilders have a peek at it.  Expert red-penner Sam, our resident Vice Captain, helped me slice and dice it, and by the time we finished, this was the result:

Michael just wanted to know what lay in the woods.  He never expected to find his destiny.

Michael Briant has it all – a nice home, a loving family, a beautiful girlfriend…and an overbearing father.  The one thing he doesn’t have is freedom.  He’s forbidden to enter the Riverside Park woods, yet he’s always heard them calling to him.  Desperate to know their secrets, he ventures in, and finds himself in a whole new world.

Now Michael must either return to the quiet life he left behind, or brave new dangers with his friend, Ramila, to defeat a new menace to Lokana.  It’s not a choice he can make lightly.  And if he doesn’t decide soon, he’ll be stranded in Lokana forever.

I was both surprised and please that it turned out so well.  I’m working hard to defeat my tendency to skip out on a scene before it’s really finished.  And today?  The words were flowing fast and free again.

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