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Glass in a Minefield
Today is sort of my day off.
And yet the words seem to be stuck somewhere, jammed in my knuckles on the way to the keyboard. I could make a list of everything that needs to be done yesterday. (Cou-this blog-gh.) Somehow I have an inkling that it would be less than helpful.
My normally underwhelming life has taken a turn for the over, between finances and bills that line up with not-so-polite sniffs and a week without income during my job switch. Okay, so I made $24. That’s barely half a tank of gas. Hovering just behind my right ear is the rewrite of my novel. I’d like to think the last few maundering weeks have been ideas stewing in my head like a crock pot full of glory, ready to serve themselves up into bestseller history the second the timer goes off.
Move over, Jo Rowling. I claim this one. (Just kidding. Eilean Donan is way too public.)
No, chances are a few more rewrites and a lot more tooth gnashing stands between me and any real changes in my finances, though this new job will help significantly. So what do I do? Buckle in and dig down? Mix up some metaphors? Nope.
I turn to the dark side.
I make muffins.
Sure, they’re really good muffins. Lemon curd and blueberry. They’re delicious. I already ate four. But unfortunately for them, they aren’t that inspirational. They sure don’t help my behemoth of a project. Now it’s already 1:20, and I have to go to work and take a test on beer and food that I feel 72% sure I will fail (the food part, not the beer part — four days isn’t much to memorize a menu).
So why am I spending my evenings watching Veronica Mars again instead of working on my rewrite? Maybe it’s because every time I sit down to write, every sentence ends up punctuated with, “Buffy! Easy!” as the puppy makes the cat squeak or “Willow, down!” as the kitten sticks her face in my breakfast. By the time they settle down, the puppy needs to go outside (or has gone inside), and I can’t remember for the life of all things fuzzy what I was doing.
Nah. I could blame them, but they’re just being babies.
It’s my own fault I’ve been so lazy lately. There’s a word for it, and that word is discouragement. If I were to scrunch my eyes shut and stick out a finger, that finger would land on an innocuous little sticky note with four lowercase letters written on it.
Yeah, that's the one.
I think I haven’t felt like working on my rewrite because of fear. I’m afraid of the mountain of debt under the carpet of our apartment. I’m afraid that this gamble I’m taking of working as a server while I try to get my writing off the ground will just make me into a 30-year-old with no real “experience” in a traditional field. I’m afraid I won’t be able to provide for my family. Those are harsh fears, sharp and cold and sterile fears. They’re fears I don’t much know how to address or conquer.
It’s not just about the writing. It’s the other things that squeeze in on me. Each distraction, each new envelope that comes in the mail is a reminder that we’re just sprinting to catch up. Each batch of muffins seems to be made of lead. As much as I would like to believe that getting this rewrite done will change something, that belief is as fragile as looping blown glass in a minefield, and as I dance around it, I wonder which step will create the booming symphony of that glass crashing into shards.
I think I turn to baking and cooking because I have to believe that something I make with my hands can sustain us. There’s a power in that belief that can turn blown glass to diamond hardness, if I only knew how to harness it.
So for now, I’ll drink my Thai tea, eat my muffins, and fixate on the irony of the mug I chose quite by accident.
Like this:
Murder, Tea, and Piggles
This week I began another rewrite for my first book. For the first time, I feel like my protagonist has something going for her. I’ve probably rewritten the same first chapter twelve times over the past six years, trying to reinvent the wheel over and over and over again. What I needed was for someone to come along, look at it, shake their head and say, “Nope. You’re facing the wrong way. Look over there.”
Last week, the lovely Julie Kenner did just that for me. The result has been oddly liberating. Not only do I feel able to better express a more fully-realized protagonist, but the new goals I wrote for her can be woven seamlessly into the rest of the book. Instead of feeling like I’m reinventing her, I actually feel like I was able to peel back her exterior to figure out exactly what it is that she needed to be. It works — she is much better this way. There are so many little Easter eggs to sprinkle through the book now, and I think that will ultimately make it a more satisfying read for people. I’d love to tell you about them, but as a whole one or two of you have actually read the thing, it wouldn’t make any sense. So you’ll just have to wait. Until I find an agent, sell the book, and it someday gets published.
Yesterday, Karen McFarland hosted New York Times Bestselling Author Bob Mayer on her blog for a great guest post about creating unforgettable characters. I would highly recommend that you check it out. There were some nuggets in there that I definitely intend to keep in mind when I continue this rewrite.
What struck me most about the advice and feedback I’ve gotten lately is that people need motivations for things. They may not be positive things — in fact, I think that often people are more motivated by the threat of something negative than the possibility of something positive — but they have to be present. Whether it’s trying to get your reader to accept why your protagonist is trusting that stranger or why she is so determined to keep something secret, the reader has to be able to say she understands even if she wouldn’t make the same choice.
So as I strike out on this new path (hopefully not in the baseball sense of the phrase), my protagonist has a few new things in her backpack, including a cat named Piggles. My friend has a cat called Miggles, and when I was thinking about her cat, I was thinking of him going hungry and being mad about it, and voila — Piggles was born. He should be an interesting kitty to play with.
This is about how I picture Piggles. A dog kitty (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
The past few weeks, I’ve been acting as a beta reader for three friends. It’s been a really fascinating experience, both because it has shown me some amazing writing from three people who will certainly be big names in fantasy/paranormal fiction before long AND because it’s helping me to look more critically at my own work. All four of us are unpublished writers, and I think we’ve all felt the frustration of running into walls with our work. Sometimes you just get too close to something to be able to see what needs to be fixed. None of us are professionals, but we all have completed novels and all have the goal of being traditionally published. I think we’re all happy to have the chance to get feedback on our work from writers in the same genre.
I think we’re all guilty of getting too close to things, whether you’re a writer or not. Sometimes we get so focused on whatever goal is floating in front our faces that we get lost in that metaphor about seeing the forest through the trees. It’s hard to see the forest when your nose is stuck between a couple creases of bark.
Forest? What forest? Bark of a Pine tree showing normal sloughing of plates of bark. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Sometimes we can get perspective on our own, but other times we need that gentle readjustment in our thinking to come from the outside — or sometimes we just need a bap on the head with a yardstick. I’m setting out on a new journey with some new goals this month. Instead of completing book three by April 15th, my goal is to have a submission-ready book one by June 1.
What have you needed perspective on in your life lately? Yardstick or gentle turn? Have you had to reevaluate your goals?
Like this:
Caught Up
Well, gentle viewers, just color me sheepish.
I meant to post about something else today, but I got a wee bit caught up with my revisions. I’ve been polishing up my “final” draft of Primeval, and I got sucked in. It’s a good feeling, getting sucked into your own book. I fixed a bunch of little things, textured some other stuff up a bit, wrote a new scene or two that needed to be in there, and generally read along to make sure things were going the way I wanted them to. For the most part, it’s there, but the biggest patch I was worried about is still to come, so I’ll tackle that tomorrow.
On another note, there is a raccoon living in my ceiling. The husband banged on the ceiling last night at three in the morning, and we heard its lumbering body scamper away. It thumped right where he had his hand, and he hollered — apparently he felt the weight of its body. No squirrels, then. Definitely a big critter up there…crittering.
How it managed to find its way into our third-floor ceiling is beyond me, but it’s definitely not on the roof.
Picture this guy running roughshod over your head every night. Thump, thump, scuffly-slide thump. Thanks, Wikipedia for giving him a face!
Related articles
- Critters in the Attic Update (kwrites.wordpress.com)
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Buttressing Your Protagonist, Part 1
Every story you read will supporting characters. Even if you come across one with only a lone ranger of a hero, there will be elements of the story that fill in the role of supporting characters.
As I rewrite and revise Primeval, this is something sticking out in my mind. For me, there are three different kinds of characters — or perhaps three different kinds of hats.
Look at that charming man. Thank you, southdacola.com!
1. The top hat! Everyone loves a top hat. We all know how fetching Abraham Lincoln looked in one. Just look at that guy. He was the star of his era. You just can’t mention his time of history without mentioning him — tragic, yes. John Wilkes Booth saw to that bit. But he is a clear player, either the protagonist or antagonist depending on where you sit in the stadium of the Civil War.
Your character in the top hat will be the clear protagonist, always in the reader’s mind no matter what. You might have a couple characters who wear that hat — and that’s okay. Robert Jordan’s Wheel of Time has several, and they are incredible.
This hat keeps your head covered AND opens your beer! Get your own at walyou.com
2. The baseball hat. Classic teammates, these ones. These are the characters who play a role in the action, but don’t take center stage much if ever. On occasion, whilst writing them, you will find that they start gabbing at you, sounding something like Charlie Brown’s mother, until you give them a bigger role. In Primveval, my character Jezebel did that. She started as just a girl who blew in from New York to holler at one of my other characters, and then she fluffed a pillow, made a bed, and stayed there — baseball hat securely on her head. Sometimes you shouldn’t allow that, but she ended up being a rather essential character and playing the role of seeker. She took off and found answers to problems I didn’t have time to entertain in the world of my protagonists.
These characters should be the source of tension and conflict as well as support. They’ll poke at your protagonist, argue with them, and sometimes try to wrest control. This is good — it drives scenes. It doesn’t mean they’re not on the same team, just that even on the most well-oiled team, people become disenchanted with their position.
Awwwwwww. This kid shouldn't steal the show unless he's flinging macaroni at your protagonist. Image via uncommongrace.typepad.com
3. The beanie/took hat. This is someone who is, for the most part, just chilling in the background. These characters are the ones who should blend, even though their presence is necessary. Cab drivers, hotel bellhops, bored convenience store employees, passers-by, etc. Make them too unique, and the readers will think they are supposed to notice them for a reason. If they do start making some noise, make sure it’s a clear purpose — comic relief or a foot stuck out to trip up your protagonist on the way to a goal.
In this draft of my book, one scene I will be adding is a brief moment where my protagonist, Tarah (pronounced TAR-uh) runs into a man her best friend flirted with once. This scene will be a source of tension, because it occurs after Tarah has left the human world behind, and this man is a reminder of what she has lost. These people can serve as placeholders or purposes, but they should never take center stage.
Alrighty, folks, now that I am effectively going to be late for work but completed my blog for today, enjoy your Sunday!
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Tick, Tock
My boss seems to hate my writing.
This is what I picture. Yes, that's you, Mr. Manager. Image via the all-knowing icanhascheezburger.com
At least, when I look at the schedule for the next ten days, it feels that way. No, no. I don’t really think he sits there writing the schedule, drumming his fingertips together and grinning in malicious glee as he schedules me seven shifts for the upcoming week, but that’s what happened anyway.
And today, I have to be at work at 4, which is in a little over two hours. I’ll be there till about 3 a.m. and then return at 11:30, and I will remain there until 11 at night. So when am I going to write?
The point of this isn’t to bemoan my schedule or to violate the terms of the “Acceptable Social Media Usage” section of my employee handbook — the point is that all writers have scheduling issues. All of us have families, friends, commitments, puking dogs and/or children, car trouble, a significant other who missed the bus, late shifts at work, and precious, precious moments to be used writing.
That’s precisely why the monsters in yesterday’s post are so insidious — they infect our shining treasure that is time.
If you’re anything like me, you would rather spend your days just writing. You probably slump a little bit each time a large bill or rent is due, wishing you could hand your landlord or Verizon a completed section of your novel in lieu of a check. But for most of us at this stage, it doesn’t work that way.
Put the time in the bowl. And we won't have a problem. Image property of Tristar Entertainment.
We stare out into the quickly ticking clocks of the world asking if we could just have some more time. Time won’t wait for us. We have to make it do what we need it to. Which brings me today, as that blasted clock keeps moving closer to 4.
I have about forty chapters of novel to organize and revise, and less time to do it in. Which means I have some decisions to make. Home is a comfortable place, and my desk chair is decidedly not. It hurts my butt and strains my neck, which makes me all too apt to stay in my living room on our cloud-like bed sofa. The problem is that my computer has been effectively turned into a desktop because the battery is like an alcoholic in withdrawal. If I unplug it, it gets the shakes, it moans, and then it shudders and passes out.
Because of that, here I am at my cluttered desk, looking at a prescription bag, a hefty pile of notebooks and books, a rainbow flag someone gave me at D.C. Pride a couple years ago, and a sheet of Toy Story stamps half-obscured by a CVS bag. My husband hates this room. My desk has never been an organized place.
In spite of its foibles, this is where I need to will myself to be for the next several weeks. I am committed to making something happen in January with my novel, whether an agent asks me to send her a query or simply tells me to scrap the idea. Something to move me forward.
It’s that commitment that sets me in a race against the ticking of the clock. It’s the drive to write set against Einstein — we all know that it ticks faster when there’s work to be done and a deadline to meet. And so, gentle viewers, today I want to ask you to take on the clock with me.
How many of you struggle to get your word count goals or revision goals finished with your schedule? How many of you feel like the clock is always set against you? For the month of December, this is my challenge: to create a polished product to present to agents. Yours is probably a different goal, and you might well whine at me for making this a December thing. It’s the holiday season — believe me, I know there are other demands on your time in addition to your normal schedules.
That’s why it’s a challenge, isn’t it?
I have an hour and a half to get ready for work, to eat something, and to format a few more chapters into Scrivener. I’m going to challenge myself. Will you?
Let’s show that clock (and December) who’s boss.
Like this guy. For realsies. Own this image like Chartoff-Winkler Productions does. Be the image.
Like this:
Crash, Crash, Boom
That’s the sound of my Scrivener Beta tonight. I got all excited thinking that today I could get my NaNo winner’s discounted full version, only to be punctured with a big, shiny pin that has “DECEMBER 2″ engraved across its length.
My hopes and dreams, as depicted by www.loveourcanucks.com.
I’ve been working away in spite of the many (many, many) times Scrivener has crashed on me. I’m awfully lucky it saves all the time. Aside from its seeming inability to stay open for more than thirty minutes at a time, I love Scrivener. I love that I can separate my beast of a novel into chapters and further into scenes. That’s what has occupied my time for the last couple hours, along with fixing some punctuation that didn’t import correctly with the rest of the file. It organizes everything neatly into easy-to-manage bits instead of having to wield a novel and try to edit the thing like trying to sculpt Mount Rushmore with a hammer and a chisel.
Get out your tools. Image via Encyclopedia Brittanica, credit Getty Images.
As I have a heap of work to do on this monstrosity in the next fifty days (!!!), I love the features that allow me to move around those chunks of text within the manuscript and restructure things, insert others, and just generally act like you are writing with building blocks instead of 120,000+ words that need painstakingly detailed arrangement.
Much easier. Image via www.startbreakingfree.com
In short, I love it. I can’t wait to get my NaNo winner’s discounted full version tomorrow. (Grumble, grumble — wanted it today.) I just hope it doesn’t bug out on me after I install the full version. Even if it does, I tweeted the company, and got a response in seconds letting me know that there is a responsive support staff available, so that makes me more confident.
I’m really itching to get this novel polished and pretty. I know it’s a lot to expect in 50 days (again I say !!!), but I feel pretty confident that I can make it happen. Here’s what’s going on in this revision:
1. Name changes. I realized, much to my dismay, that a few of my character names bore resemblance to other series’ characters, and I changed the name of my protagonist from Sarah to Tarah (pronounced TAR-uh). It’s close enough that I won’t sit in a befuddled wash of confusion trying to remember what to type, but sounds different pronounced. I also changed another character’s name from Damon to Gabriel. He’s a Big Bad, and as his back story is entwined with a character named Elaine’s, he needed to change. (Growl, Vampire Diaries.) Luckily, those sorts of changes are as simple as running a quick Find and Replace. Done and done.
2. Switching my underlines to italics. So once upon a time (and verified today), I read that agents and publishers prefer to have paper manuscripts formatted in Courier font with underlining instead of italics because of some very important reason that has slipped my mind at the moment. When I wrote the second draft of Primeval, that’s exactly what I did in an effort to save myself the inevitable migraine I get when trying to format a large document in Word in one fell swoop. Then I read that most don’t care as long as the font is legible (I’m sticking with Courier to play it safe), and that italics are okay. I’ll venture out into italics, because underlining looks stupid to my eyes.
3. Structure. I know. Ouch. This is supposed to be the polishing draft, no? Why am I doing a major structural revision? Well, a couple reasons. *Big Announcer Voice* Are you ready for bullet points?!
Get it? Bullets, with points. Get it?!! These ones came from portwallpaper.com
- I have three acts, but the climax fell into a weird place.
- I have no Big Bad to defeat, really. It’s a trilogy, so the ultimate Big Bad won’t be defeated till the last book, and Mr. Gabriel is necessary to keep around for a while because he is deliciously fun to write and has some parts to play later on.
- I want my books to sell, and the (possibly unfortunate) truth about that is that you have to bow to the Gods of Structure if you want that to happen. Structure Scripture dictates that your protagonist defeats a Big Bad, even if there’s going to be a Bigger Bad next time around. I’m not saying it’s impossible to buck that trend, but let’s face it. When did you last read a bestseller that left the primary antagonist sitting around picking his nose at the end?
Suffice it to say that I’ve gots me work cut out for me. Now if I can keep my new toy open, I’m going to get back to work.
Have a lovely evening, gentle viewers, and try not to pick your noses too much.
Like this:
Watch Your Mouth
It’s going to do a trick!
Sorry. I’m just chock-full of the bad puns lately. You can smack my wrist if you must.
Well, gentle viewers, we are back to The 25 for the penultimate day! Aren’t you excited?! I sure am. Though I’m going to have to start nosing around for little tidbits to chuck my two cents at day after day. Hm.
Here’s today!
24. Language
Think of your writing as a windshield. Ill-suited words can streak and cloud your reader’s view, and just-right language can be as clarifying as a high-powered carwash. Once you have a solid draft, it’s time to consider:
- Could a different word bring even more energy or resonance to a poignant moment through sound, subtleties of meaning, or syllabic rhythm?
- Could the setting be conveyed more vividly? Is the natural world palpable?
- Is the emotional tone consistently resonant? Are there neutral words or passages that could be more charged?
- Does the language powerfully enact the action?
As you polish and prune, each piece of writing will teach you something new about what is possible. Let yourself be surprised.
—Cohen
Ah, language. Such a fickle critter. Sometimes it’s in our corner, flowing off our tongues and out of our fingertips like some kind of magical chi. Other times, it’s a monkey flinging poo at our heads. And that’s all that drips off of us. Poo.
There are times when what’s important is to simply vomit the words onto the page, like this month, where hundreds of thousands of writers feverishly slave at their notebooks (electronic or otherwise) to just get the damn things out of us. Words.
And then comes December. It’ll roll over on you like a sleeping grizzly, flinging a furry arm over your face in its hibernation, then cough bear breath — which I imagine smells something like stale sushi and digested berries — in your face to remind you that what you just vomited on the page is stinking up its den. And you’ll want to clean it up, because you’re not stupid enough to piss off a hibernating grizzly, no matter how sleepy he looks.
This one looks friendly enough.
The best way I know when my language is flinging poo instead of sparkling like magic is when my attention wanders away from the page I’m revising. Come December, I’ll be going back over my first draft with a red pen text color to mark any points in the manuscript where I see something shiny in another direction, or start pouncing light beams on my wall.
Reading aloud can also show you sticky spots. If your tongue falls out on the floor or ends up in a knot tied around your uvula, some re-wording is probably in order.
The questions posed by The 25 are very good starting points. Some others to ask yourself are:
1. Are your action scenes dragging?
2. Does your exposition drop you like a weighted body at the bottom of the sea?
3. Do your characters make themselves distinct? Pick a random (but meaningful) chunk of dialogue and stick another character’s name in the attribution. Have one of your readers read it. If they shrug at you, look over that character’s dialogue. People have verbal tics. Listen to your characters until you find theirs, then pepper their speech with them. Liberally.
4. Does your story flow from beginning to end or does it cough and mutter in fits and starts?
Language is both the poo-flinging culprit and the glorious wand-waving solution to all of those issues. So when you revise, make sure you keep that grizzly happy. Or at least bring him some honey.
Like this:
Fruit Ninja
I like Fruit Ninja. When I forget a book or want to wind down a little before bed, I’ll play a few rounds and ponder how it’s possible for someone to achieve over 1000 points on arcade mode.
This afternoon after I got up, I was laying on our living room bed sofa playing Fruit Ninja, and as I sliced various tropical fruit with my sparkle blade, I wondered what exactly I was doing. It’s my day off; a little relaxation is fine, but there are a lot of other things I would like to do, like make some enchiladas, write my blog, work on NaNo stuff, take a shower. Hygiene is important. We don’t want a stinky Emmie on our hands, do we?
I’m 15,000 words into NaNo, which is great. I’m ahead of schedule in spite of my busy weekend, and I’m definitely hoping to get a bit of good writing done today. Today’s tidbit of The 25 is about revision, which may not be the focus of my writing this month, but it’s still something to think about.
23. Revision
There are two good reasons for revising what you’ve written: Either you want to change something, or your editor, agent or client does. If the revision is your idea, that’s good. It means you know what you want, or what you suspect won’t fly. If the revision is by request, remember: The customer may not always be right, but she has the money and the medium—as well as the experience of buying for it. (You can fight for what you believe, of course, but choose your battles carefully. Races are won or lost in the final minutes.)I knew a writer who would write a first draft and submit it without even reading it over. Others, myself included, substitute and trim and pinch and juggle until the work pours like melted butter.
With that in mind, here’s your 30-minute assignment:
Reduce by a third the word count of one of your recent efforts without losing its essence. (I did this myself, in fact, with my contributions to this article.) Note: Don’t constantly reread what you’ve written; if you memorize it, self-editing will be tougher. Put it away for a few days. Then read it fresh.
—Spikol
Since I’ve already posted a lot about revision, I’m going to skip the self-revision stuff and think about what it’ll be like when an editor tells me to change stuff in my work. It’s actually something I haven’t given a whole lot of thought to, because I haven’t even gotten to the stage or wallpapering my bedroom with rejection slips yet. I haven’t had the mental capacity to imagine what would happen after someone decided to take on my work.
For a lot of us unpublished folk, our writing is like this meticulous sand castle we’ve been sitting on the shore to construct for years. The first time someone comes along and wants us to change something we’ve spent a painstaking amount of time creating grain by grain, it probably feels like a massive wave spilling over the tide line and washing away something we are proud of. The first impulse might be to fall face down in the sand and flail around.
What I think (and this is theoretical, because I have yet to have a professional dissect my work) is that the key to surviving is to see what the wave leaves behind. We might think it washed away the Taj Mahal, but it might have instead washed away a bunch of staircases that go nowhere and two outhouses. Revision for others is sometimes the best thing that authors can do, because we write for an audience. While we may think we see everything most clearly, sometimes others can clarify what we think is already sharp.
And if you give up, there’s always the massive 8-Fruit Combo to give your life meaning, or the sparkling dragonfruit.
Like this:
Magic in a Jar and Other Creative Tales
I know, I know. Double post action today. However, first of all, I need to celebrate getting draft two of book one finished. Yep. Done-zo. Even untangled the snarl at the end of the yarn ball into a perfectly awesome ending and a snazzy epilogue. It’s lookin’ like a book, folks. Onward to book two!
So as I plunge back into the first draft of book two (it’s about 85% done) and try to digest the Big Mac that seemed like a great idea for a celebratory dinner (I didn’t say I was thinking clearly), I thought I’d jet back to The 25 for a little post on creativity. Plus, I stumbled across another blog earlier that inspired some of the other stuff I want to write about before it disappears back into the ether.
Here’s what they have to say:
15. Creativity
Creativity is the secret sauce of the writing life. Its ingredients are different for everyone, and may change over time, which can make it difficult to keep the cupboards stocked. When you get stuck, take 30 minutes and try one of these:
- Switch genres. Write a poem before diving into a narrative piece.
- Review incomplete writing for a scrap of idea or language; let it lead you in.
- Burn kindling. Keep a file of art, poems, quotes, pressed flowers—whatever ignites your imagination. Sift through it when you need a spark.
- Grow your own list of triggers. Repeat what works until it doesn’t; then try something new.
Creativity isn’t always a formula. There isn’t always a zing poof of inspiration (that sounds suspiciously like dusting a vampire on Buffy) that leads to the ultimate creative endeavor. As Sarah Toole Miller mentioned on her blog today, sometimes when you write you discover that you “stumbled upon a tiny bit of magic.”
That sums up what I feel about creativity. I feel like my life finds me wandering about the day to day collecting bits of magic in a jar.
Perhaps this jar.
When the time comes to put ass in chair and write, I get out my little jar and see what’s floating around in there. Sometimes one bit of magic shines brighter than others. Sometimes one or two have already died in captivity. Regardless of how shiny they stay or how quickly the shine fades, I keep filling that jar. Whether it’s scribbled on the back of a pay stub that never made it out of my work check presenter or a receipt or a napkin or occasionally my skin, the jar gets filled whenever I spot a bit of magic.
Gotta write book two now. Get your write on, gentle viewers.
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In Which Emmie Has a Very Ambitious Goal
Yesterday when I had to go to work (the beer-slinging work), I was in the middle of my writing work. 4:30 crept toward me like a cartoon villain tip-toeing down the hall in front of where I sit. I can hear the music now.
Probably this guy.
That guy feels a song coming on.
The tidings of 4:30 were very unwelcome. I typed frantic words, flipped back and forth through pages, and stared at the clock as if I could will it backward. Eventually the green guy in a cape came, grabbed me around the waist and pulled me kicking and screaming out the door.
“Nooooooooooooooooooooo!”
As if going to work when I was in the writing zone was bad enough, it was Jack W. Tweeg that made me leave home. How embarrassing.
Anyway, through a scheduling mishap, I didn’t get scheduled at work today. While at first that made me really excited, I then got grumpy about it because everyone who works is going to make money (our restaurant got bought out for the day). Now I’m excited again. It means I have a whole day that I don’t usually have off to write. Which brings me to Emmie’s Very Ambitious Goal.
He's ready to hear it. Are you?
My goal is to finish my second draft today.
Why is that so very ambitious? Well. I still have twenty single spaced pages to rewrite. That takes a while. A lot of it needs to be tweaked, which takes longer. But I think I can do it. In fact, I know I can do it. The reasons I want to get this done today are as follows: it’s my last day off before NaNoWriMo officially starts, I don’t want it hanging over my head like a villain in a hot air balloon, and it just needs to get done so I don’t go insane and start cutting off body parts for Halloween.
Alrighty. Time for me to get to the old drawing board. Wish me luck. I’ll report back here later.
“I feel……….I feel a song coming on!”
