Time’s a-wasting with Sven. We have until mid-January to be done. I’ll make it, I don’t doubt that, but I wasn’t expecting to wrap anything up before January. Why?

Because I had a plot kink.

I hate plot kinks.

I abhor plot kinks. When something gets stuck and won’t get unstuck, no matter what you do.

Loathe and despise plot kinks.

Fortunately, I have one friend who is really good at helping me de-kink. Lora is kind of like my sounding board. An idea hits me, but I can’t work out the tangles, I buzz her. A plot kink sneaks into the story, I buzz her. I just want to strangle my character, I buzz her.

A few days ago, I had to buzz her because of one of the stupid plot kinks, but now I wonder why I didn’t do it a few weeks ago when I first suspected the snag was coming. Could have saved myself headaches…wasted words…wasted hours. 😉 One of those lessons learned things, you might think.

But nope… not me. I seem to enjoy doing it the hard way, pounding my head against a wall for a week or two before I break down and start trying a logical, proven way. Or a way that’s proven itself to me. 😉

Bad thing about plot kinks, usually it requires some serious backtracking…not so bad this time around. I only lost about 7000-8000 words, and I’ve already made up what I lost.

Good thing about plot kinks? Once you work it out and you realize that the finish line is looming just on the horizon…almost in sight. Maybe even before the end of December.

For the writers… what do you do with plot kinks? Bang your head? Call a friend? One, then the other… both? Or something totally different?