Have you ever seen the movie, Chinatown with Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunway? If you haven’t, there is a scene where this guy cuts through Jack Nicholson’s nostril. It’s one of those scenes that are branded in your mind forever and when you think about it, you shiver and say, “blech!”
Well, I’ve just written three chapters that gave me the hee-bee-jeebies. Not so much “blech” in that blood is flying everywhere. More like “blech” in that I’d cut down to the bone and exposed the raw emotions of my characters. The exposure was necessary and not always pretty (or gory for that matter). But still, when I faced having to write those particular scenes, it was scary (in that I wasn’t sure I could go there), exhilarating (when I found that I could go there and beyond) and now, exhausting because I went there and I know I have to go back and do it again.
In spite of the doubt and fear that goes hand-in-hand with being a writer (and don’t get me started on the pay), I’d much rather be doing this than sitting in traffic every morning to get to a job that I hate.