Battle Writing, Part II

So I'm onto the major battle of my fourth book (woohoo!). Once again, I find myself having made my life difficult. Sometimes I wonder if I've done all of this solely because I want to make myself work harder than might be necessary. Then at other times I assume that I'm actually smart and this is merely something random that happens along the way.

Anyway, so I'm working on, really, the only battle of the fourth book. It might be only one battle, but it'll encompass at least four chapters (possibly more upon revision). So I'm writing it and I'm discovering things along the way, which I'm always open to. Especially because my ability to understand the time of events has always been so clumped that pretty well everything from book 2 on I just said, "And then stuff happens!" So I'm glad for the chance to actually get it all figured out. Or at least, kind of figured out. But a part of me doesn't want to finish this battle.

Have you ever been afraid of the dark?

I mean, most kids are afraid of darkness at some point. Then one day we grow up and say, "Monsters aren't real," and get over our 'irrational' fear of the dark and nighttime. That's great. I'm not afraid of the dark to a degree. If I haven't seen a scary movie trailer or been dabbling in sin recently, then darkness is pretty much harmless to me.

Now how about the darkness within yourself?

I'm terrified of that. Absolutely terrified. I know once the battle is over, I'm going to have to delve into the darker sides of my brain to write the scenes necessary for the story. I know this is coming. I even have a playlist on my iPod all ready to go. I don't want to listen to the music though. I don't want to write those scenes. I don't want to get into my antagonist's head right now. Sometimes he's fun to write, but I know he won't be fun to write in these upcoming scenes.

For me, personally, he poses such a temptation to just say, "Well, I have to write it for the character," and easily can then find myself slipping into the temptation to sin. And my biggest stumbling block is my own mind. It's no one else's doing but my own when I stumble and fall into sin, because the biggest sins I struggle with are those dealing almost entirely with the mind.

Heh, and here I thought writing would be a good thing.

So I'm afraid of the darkness within my own being. The darkness within my own mind. But I know I need to get past that and get to the end of the book. I can't just sit back and say, "I'm not ready to do that yet," forever. Eventually I need to write it. At least, I need to if I ever want to finish this series. Which, naturally I do.

Such a strange conundrum this is. Maybe when I get to that point in the story, if I pray hard enough and be sincere enough, this won't be as detrimental to me as I fear it will be. At least, that's my hope.

For those who are interested, here's a picture of what all I have open on my computer for this battle scene:

Currently writing: Unseen
Currently Reading: On Becoming a Novelist by John Gardner
Currently Listening to: "503" from the Angels and Demons soundtrack