I am usually a pantser. Sit down in front of my computer, open up a blank document and write. Yes. Pretty much just like that. I will have an opening scene. Maybe a scene in the middle. And I know how the book/story will end. Usually. Not so much with stories. But definitely with my novels.

Most of all, I am a start on page one and continue to write until I am at page done. And then I’m done. Straight-forward. Chronological.

I attended a writing workshop with author Matt Bell, hosted by Tin Roof Publishing, several years ago and was given Matt Bell’s book Refuse to be Done. He talked about writing in islands, meaning to write the scene that is in the front of the head, not the scene that is chronologically about to happen.

I’m not good at island writing. I really am much more of a chronological writer. But I have done the island hopping when I had a full draft and really knew which scenes needed to go where. And the experience was kind of amazing.

Island writing means that when I have my scene in mind, I know its setting, its texture that I just give myself permission to write it.

Island writing means that this is a scene that might not make it into the final draft. But its there for me to contemplate. Island writing means grabbing that scene and experiencing it and imbibing its presence.

After writing the islands, Bell then said to write the bridges, the connective tissue. This is where I struggle. But I guess it’s about asking myself the route to take to the island. What is the island hoping to achieve and how will my character arrive there?

Bell gives fabulous advice: keep the character moving. If the character is in the same setting as before, make sure something new happens or something new is within the setting or I’m just repeating what has already happened.

Island writing is about trusting myself. Trust my characters. And trust my ability to revise. I have been holing myself up into not writing because I am intimidated by the concept of the final product: publication. But given that I’m not sending things out because I never feel confident in my ability, then publication isn’t the final product.

But this really is about trust. I am a good writer. And I have wonderful characters who bloom on the page and then walk with me and, at times, inhabit my dreams. I have to trust myself that I can script out the island and its conflict and its setting and its characters. And then I can walk the bridge that will connect my islands.

Trust. Trust the steps and the process. Trust.