AAARGH!

 "A writer is someone for whom writing is more difficult than it is for other people."

~ Thomas Mann

I typed my fingers to the bone yesterday, trying to get an important scene just right. It's one of those "and the character realized" scenes, what I call a pivot point -- where something happens which serves as a catalyst for the main character's change.

If I do say so myself, I wrote a darned good scene. It was tight, evocative and connected to the story. I felt pretty smug when I shut down the computer for the night. The old girl still has it.

When I woke up this morning, in those foggy few minutes when your body's awake but the brain hasn't caught up yet, it hit me. That entire scene -- the one I'd been so proud of a few hours earlier -- had to go. I'd been so caught up in the frills of the scene -- working in the mc's relationship with her grandfather, as well as delicious historical facts about the Central Park menagerie, AND Ellis Island -- that I committed a cardinal sin. I was so wrapped up in the words, that I forgot an important rule. You see, it was through a conversation with her grandfather that the mc gains new insight.

And that's nothing more than a lecture. A "the wise adult will show the child the way." Blech. How could I have fallen into that trap?

So, that scene will be deleted as soon as I finish the post and I will do my best to turn Grandpa into a pattern on the wallpaper and put my young heroine front and center in her own story.