Disipline

 Been discussing writing with a writer friend of mine. She's a successful mystery writer and conference speaker who is very active in the writing community. Her name is Sunny and her latest book, Where Angels Fear, has a cover featuring a whip and a pair of dominatrix boots. I like one and not the other, you can figure out which. Anyway, she's had a few books published while I have languished for years as the rewrite, unpublished wannabe. That she has had patience with me this long is a miracle.
  I've been stuck recently, near the end of my book, and been growing increasingly frustrated. She has been patiently beating me over the head with advice, her latest point being discipline. Considering the cover and topic of that last novel, apparently it is something she is familiar with. You need discipline, she shrieked. Shriek typing is a unique skill. And I protested, I write every night! And she replied, that's not what I meant idiot. I meant story disipline and yes its true.
  I write sci-fi/fantasy because that is what I love to read. One important element of this genre is a believable world and it is this that has helped to overwhelm me. Several times I have vowed to shrink my story down to one narrow line, and each time, the deeper into the story I went, the more sprawling it has become. At first, I have one plot line and then I think I need another line to explain why something is happening. So I add another and swear only two. But with the new one I realize I have to show another person's point of view, and now I need to explain why they are sending spies to Bladada land down south. And soon I am back to multiple overlapping story lines that are confusing the hell out of me.
  Honestly, I have yet to mentally work out how to keep to the one thread. All I know is that I will not do another rewrite. Too many rewrites and it has frozen me for too long.
  And I'm writing this, which no one will read, but it feels good to get it out.
  And it's the whip, although I prefer riding crops. ;) That's a joke. . .no really.