As usual, the middle of my story is bloated up with air and foam. I wave an arm through it, can’t see my own hand. This always happens with me. I think I need to go to a plot workshop. You know, come to think of it, I once did go to a plot workshop, sort of. A job I once had sent some of its editorial staff to Robert McKee’s Story Seminar, and I was one of the lucky ones to go for free. Because it was mandatory, and because the seminar was so very long, and the seats in the lecture hall were so hard, I recall some hours of lying prone on the floor, wondering if all the information would somehow seep into my head if I stopped writing it down. Not so. I also remember watching the longest-ever viewing of Casablanca, which Robert McKee shows scene by scene, stopping every few minutes to discuss.

Conclusions? First off, I have determined that I never should have quit that job. Second, maybe I should skip ahead and write Act III?

Sometimes I want to be writing a YA novel, and I move deeply into a scene, sure of what I’m doing, and all is well.

Sometimes I want to be writing simply a novel, a novel I would find on a shelf and read, so then I must be writing literary fiction, and I move deeply into a scene, more sure now of what I’m doing, and all is well.

Sometimes I don’t know at all what I’m writing. I look at the words. And I have no idea what to call them.

Sometimes I want to define it. I’d know which way to end it then.

Sometimes I want to keep going and surprise myself by the ending and then just have whoever reads it tell me what they think it is.

Sometimes I wish I could be sure of just this one thing. It seems like a simple proposition: What I am writing as I sit here writing it. Do I not even know what’s right in front of my eyes?