Progress!

Well, we've made it over the Chapter 7 hump. On with Chapter 8! My two protagonists finally encounter the object of their search, the event that changes their lives forever. Things get to moving right along, then the family plans a four-day retreat that I feel I can't miss. We are a family of loud, kid-happy, cooking women, so when our core group gets together, our men tend to flee for the hills. It will be a fun, laughter-filled four days, but that is four days spent at my mother's house, four days I could be writing, four days that the novel's forward momentum must come to a screeching halt, four days without a moment's quiet. I shall have to run to the bathroom to snatch a moment to myself, I'm sure, but I'm packing the Xanax, so if worse comes to worst, I can pop a chill pill.

I think I'm giving the wrong impression. I love being with this wonderful group of women and kids. I just need lots of quiet and still, too, or I get so keyed up I can snap into cries-ville or feel so overwhelmed that I become introverted to the point that I float along in hazy-eyed silence. I'm not so alone in that anymore either. My sister made sure to ask, "You're bringing your Xanax, aren't you? I might need one -- or ten." She and mother knock heads a lot. So it can make for some tense moments. Another reason I dive into myself. Escape when there's no other option for escape.

I'm still giving the wrong impression. I'm fully anticipating a fun, food-filled weekend of well-earned indigestion and exhausted vocal cords. The kids are so much fun. I don't have any of my own, so I feel like I can dive in with them and play their games at times. The most precious thing is seeing them dress up in the same play clothes we women used to dress up in when we were that age. Sometimes they come to me for help, and I get to dress them up in wild combinations of old prom dresses we found at garage sales back in the 80s, or old drapes we turned into long capes and veils, or sashes that become a pirate's bandanna. Our memories become theirs, and we get to see them making the same precious moments that will fill them with warmth in the cold days, years down the road.

Not only has progress been made on the novel, however. We've completed one of our yard projects. I guess I can call it that. We were planning on getting goats; we put up the fencing ourselves, bought the guard dog, a huge Great Pyrenees, but decided to downsize the garden area, so we don't need the large animals now to produce copious amounts of fertilizer. We bought bunnies instead! Two adorable baby bunnies that now we must protect from the Great Pyranees, not to mention three cats who would love to ... how did I put it elsewhere? ... feast on those tender bunny brains. My sweet, snuggly kitty Raphael steals the varmints that his brother, Gabriel, catches, then eats the critters head first. Gopher brains! Yum. But hasn't this turned a gory direction? Bunnies. Right. Cute, fluffy, poo-producing bunnies. Project checked off the list. Progress feels good.

Still Slogging On Seven

Oh, good grief! I looked back through these blog entries and saw that way back on 9 February I was about to start a revision of Chapter 7 of my novel. It's exactly a month later, and I'm still working on Chapter 7. That is just sad. Pathetic. As in Puts Me In Dumbfounded Despair kind of pathetic. I used to break into tears over the fact that I had no life, that all I had was my writing, day in and day out, all I did was write, write, write. A chapter a week.

Now, what have I discovered? I have so much life going on that I have no time to write. I've been desperate to squeeze in a few paragraphs in a four-hour stretch here, a two-hour snippet there. And a month later, I've still not reached the end of Chapter 7. I'm never going to reach my deadline.

Olympics Fans?

I am not a sports fan, never have been, never intend to be, but since I can remember, I have been enthralled with the Olympics. I think it was Mary Lou Retton that hooked me for life. What an impact she and her victories had on a five-ish year old girl. So, I guess the point is, my writing, reading, and other projects are doomed for the next two weeks. While I'm rooting for the Flying Tomato and other young American heroes (yes, they all look like babies to me now), I hope to make a little more progress on Chapter 7, but I'm not counting on it. It's nice to have some pressure taken off the drive for progress for a few days, at least, to enjoy some peaceful cultural exchange and human excellence. The games only happen once every two years. The novel will be waiting when they're over this time around, too.

New Face

Well, I decided it was time to explore new looks for my journal. Added some more pics, and brightened things up a bit. It's like makeup. Some women wear the same color of eye shadow every day. Me, if my eyeshadow doesn't match the shirt I'm wearing, I'm not sure how I can cope. So, in short, you never know what I'll be wearing next time you stop in.

About writing... I'm far happier with the revisions to "The Bone Harp." One of my critters said Experiment, so I did. Several said, It's incomplete, I didn't feel for the main chick, It needs a twist at the end, so I added 1600 words to a 2200 word story. The results, I must say, please me greatly. I loathe chasing word counts for anthologies or magazines. I'd rather write a story, then find the market that takes that length. So I've learned that I'm happier with stories that dig down inside a character, inside a world, and that means longer pieces. I have yet to master the moving flash masterpiece. Meh, nor have I interest in doing so. Give me meat, enough to sink talons into.

So I'm about to undertake a full revision of Chapter 7 of the novel, meaning, I think I'm going to have to add a character that I hadn't envisioned before, which means a full rewrite of several chapters all the way back to the beginning. I usually add too many characters and have to edit some out. It's good to have useful folks floating around, waiting in the wings, but this time -- chasing that lean word count -- I've not added enough, which means that word count is about to expand. Unless I can think of another way to punch up the villain interest.

Also about to go over "Swords of Glass" again. I've only submitted it to three places, but it's been nearly a year since I wrote it, so it's time to give it a new eye. Maybe find places that could suffer improvement. I greatly prefer editing over writing rough drafts. Rough drafts hurt ...

What?!

A new month already? Life has sped up suddenly, and it's February.

I'm not going to make that May deadline for my novel. No way, Jose! I've come to a stuttering halt somewhere in a nasty rough draft of Chapter 7. Only Chapter 7! That's just about 100 handwritten pages. *sigh* I remember the days of my energetic youth when I could write 15 pages a day, with a quota of 6. That amounted to an epic of almost 300k words in six months!!! And I accomplished that feat, not once, but twice! The quality may have been crap, but the content was out of my tortured brain. My quota has slipped to 3 pages a day. I'm thrilled if I get in 3 measly pages. Maybe, since I'm aiming for 100k (120k at the most), I'll still be able to finish the rough draft by May 31. What happened to that irrepressible writing spirit? That unquenchable frenzy of the imagination?

Answer: It got repressed. It got quenched.

Well, while I'm still groaning over Chapter 7, I have had just about enough of rejections over a particular short story called "The Bone Harp." So this weekend, I started a heavy rewrite, taking the advice of several editors who were kind and generous enough to take the time to respond with more than the dreaded form letter. The story also received a couple of helpful crits at LegendFire, for which I'm grateful. When I'm satisfied with a story, but no magazine seems to understand that I am satisfied with a story, how am I to know what's missing, where I went wrong? My critiquers and those generous editors become invaluable.

I just hope the rewrites work.

Resolutions

Yes, it's 2010 ... a space odyssey, anyone? Amusing to see where some folks projected we'd be by now. A bit frustrating to muse on what may be holding up the show. Not that I wish we were all zooming around in egotistical spaceships with superiority complexes and control issues, but you get the idea.

Anyway, about those resolutions. . . . Dare I make a few, only to find myself halfway through the year without having made any progress? Finishing this current novel, selling a few stories, keeping LegendFire up and growing, those are pretty good places to start, and resolutions I'm fairly confident I can keep. Oh, yeah, and those ten pesky pounds I'd like to shed? Meh. Having a head cold is a great way to start. Nothing tastes good anyway. I have a love-hate relationship with food, and a hate-hate relationship with my treadmill. Tummy crunches by themselves just don't get the job done. Oh, well. Back to writing. . . .

To everyone at Blogspot,

Merry Christmas
and
Happy Holidays!