Not long ago, after months of what it must feel like to push a river upstream, I determined (with the generous comments from members of my writing group), that the structure I had been writing to wasn’t working for the story I wanted to tell. Square peg/round hole and all that.
So I chucked what might have been the first third of my book to start over, writing to a new structure which seems to fit the story better. At least so far. Just a month or so into the revision, it feels better. More flow-y, to continue the river metaphor.
The places where monks used to go to write back in the days when only a chosen few knew how to write, were called “scriptoriums.” These were sacred places, and the work they did considered holy. For years we’ve read about garrets and studios and hidden away cabins in hidden away woods where writers go for quiet and solitude. Some of us even make pilgrimages to these iconic places. I’ve longed for my own private cabin with a magnificent view, a fainting couch, and an inkboy to grind my ink.