Writing is always work, but sometimes it’s fun too. Or maybe that’s not the right word. Carousels are fun. Conventions are/can be fun. Writing is something beyond that. I feel relieved after a good writing day. Pleased. Justified, as if I’ve earned my oxygen for the day. I even feel that after a not so good writing day, because at least I tried.

Then there are days like I’ve had lately. What I’ve taking to call the “Gordian Not” days. Slight pun, since it’s not quite a Gordian Knot. Knots are easy by comparison. If you can’t untie one, you can always cut it, and a pair of scissors will work if no swords are handy. This is different. This is a Gordian Not. As in, you are NOT proceeding with this story until you solve this problem.

It’s no secret that some scenes are easier to write than others. There’s no shame in saving a difficult scene for another day when you’re feeling stronger. If you know what comes next, just write the next part and come back to the passage that, for whatever reason—drama or unpleasantness or whatnot—you just aren’t up for now. Gordian Nots are different. Gordian Not passages are worse than difficult. They are crucial. You literally do not know what comes next until you know how this one stubborn scene is resolved. Everything depends on it.

And you, scrivener, do not yet have its measure, and there’s no guarantee that you ever will.

Gordian Nots can kill stories in their cradles, and novels in the nursery, and have. I still have stories I can’t sort out…yet. I think most writers do.

For example, I have been hung up on the current project, a (mere?) novella. I have written novels in less time than this novella has taken, all because of a Gordian Not. Which, thank the patron saint and all the ancestors, I finally unraveled last night. I think I’ll be able to finish the story now. Finally.

As long as I don’t run into another Gordian Not.