No More Fishing

I'm thinking of printing this out and sticking it on the front of my manuscript. I tried my best to stay away because that is what everyone says I should be doing. Walk away. Come back with less attachment and fresh eyes. Oops. I started reading it today. I did my best to leave it alone, I swear. I cleaned the house. I did laundry when the hamper wasn't even full yet. I unloaded the dishwasher, reloaded it, ran it, unloaded it and started to reload again. I folded the laundry and put it away neatly. I rearranged the living room furniture. I took Pip out into the yard and walked her around. I walked Lily. Twice. I watched Judge Judy. I did my best to ignore it. I would stroll past it all nonchalant like with my head turned the other way...and still manage to sneak a look at it out of the corner of my eye. You know, just to see if it was looking at me. And it was. It was flirting mighty heavily. So I gave in, grabbed it, hugged it tightly to me like a treasure someone was demanding I hand them at gunpoint, sat down and started reading.

At first, I was mighty impressed with it. Then I got about 60 pages in and realized my crucial chapter that I forgot to write? Turns out it's very crucial (and how you miss a chapter that is clearly in your outline that you are following to a T is beyond me). As in, I-need-to-write-it-this-minute-and-stick-it-in-there-crucial. Okay, that's a bit melodramatic. It's not like the pages depend on it or they can't stay together. Really. But the truth is, it is almost 1am and I am still up because I am not letting myself write. I couldn't sleep last night either. This chapter is eating away at me. Until I get it written, I won't get any sleep. I need to write it. So I told myself I could do that tomorrow. But only that. Write it, stick the No Fishing Sign on it and stick it in a drawer for at least a month. Promise. Just that one, itty-bitty, crucial scene and I am done. The rest of it will sit as is. I swear. I will catch up on blogs, comment on them, read books about reading, read books about writing, clean clean clean to my hearts desire but I will not touch for a month once this scene is written. Or at least try really, really, really hard to.

Do you have trouble letting go? Do you cast that line back out there just to see if you get a nibble? Or a bite?