Patience a virtue?
Well I don’t have it.
I don’t like to wait.
However, I am getting better...
Over the years I have tried to learn to be more patient. I try to think first, speak or act later. It doesn’t always work out, but sometimes it does, sometime even for the better.
I had a light bulb moment a few years ago and figured out what I needed to do with the stories that are forever running amok in my mind. If I write them, they will go away. Sort of like the line from Field of Dreams, “If you build it they will come.”
What does this have to do with patience? Well for me I can write out a chapter or two or three and get ‘the people out of my head’ at least for a while. And if I’m patient the rest of their story will come, usually.
This is where I loose patience. Sometimes (like recently) some other ‘opening’ or scene will pop into my head and it will not budge. At some point I give up, open a new document and write that new idea/chapter, whatever.
Once I set that ‘new’ idea free I am rewarded with the rest of the story… or in the case of my WIP… a break through idea giving me something to run with until… you guessed it.
It’s time to be patient again!