LISTENING TO THAT VOICE INSIDE MY HEAD

Robert Burns wrote in his poem, “To a Mouse”

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane [you aren’t alone]
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft a-gley, [often go awry]
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promised joy.

This is precisely where I am regarding the completion of the manuscript for my novel. It hasn’t matter what I’ve planned to do, something has continuously crept up to curtail my plans for the past several days since my last post. Here I sat thinking of how I should begin chapter thirty-five of my novel, after having reviewed the corrections/suggestions made by my editor for the previous chapter, and having a steady flow of continuous interruptions.

Today I heard a voice, as I’ve heard for the past several days, inside my head telling to go back to the previous chapter. Why should I go back to something I know I’ve totally reviewed? Could it be that I had missed something, something I had taken for granted as being correct? How many of you have had the same experience? Most of the time I’ve ignored this, and I’ve found myself being correct in the stand I took. But this afternoon, as I resisted in going back to the previous chapter, the voice inside my head urging me to take this course of action became exceptionally strong. I figured it would be better to give in now, than to resist any more.
I cleared my head of everything except the task I was about to undertake. I printed out a copy of the chapter in question, and began a slow, slow read. Reading this with a cleared mind and a “new” set of eyes, I found not one, not two, three or four changes which needed to be made; I found I had about twenty faux pas. Once I had completed this somewhat arduous task, and had saved the changes, I took a break to clear my head once again.

This evening after eating dinner and watch an episode of “Eureka” on NetFlix online, I printed out the chapter again [there’s something after holding the printed word in your hands as opposed to reading on a screen] and read it again. This time the inner voice in my head seemed to be at peace knowing that everything is the way it should be.

Once I sat down the words which had been trapped in my head began to flow into my fingertips, it took me about twenty minutes to think of what to type next and to have another double-spaced page completed. This might not sound like a lot to have typed, however if you consider I anticipate needing about fifteen to twenty more pages to reach the typing of the final period in my novel. I’ll only need about ten more hours to reach the end of this long, long tunnel I’ve been traveling through to reach this end. Which makes reaching my self-imposed deadline of this weekend a definite reality.

So if anyone has any doubts in listening to that voice inside your head telling you to follow a different path in your writing endeavor than you had in mind. Take it from me and listen to that voice, you’ll be happier in the end if you do.

I’M DEFINITELY HAPPIER NOW THAT I DECIDED TO FINALLY LISTEN TO THAT VOICE INSIDE MY HEAD.