Feeling much better today, thanks
Thu 2005-07-28 22:50:34 (in context)
- 36,867 words (if poetry, lines) long
- 56.25 hrs. revised
[Author rereads previous post, shakes head in disgust] Well, that was maudlin. Less of that this time, I think.
Another 500 words today. Some stories, I feel like I'm dragging my characters kicking and screaming from minor crisis to minor crisis. It's not even that they're kicking and screaming; they're sorta sitting there on the ground, doing that "dead weight" thing they teach you to do in women's defense classes, and there's just staring at me balefully while I tug their uncooperative asses towards the next little hump in the story arc. Uphill.
Still, the hill I got to the top of was a good place to be. I'm not displeased with having climbed it. I'd estimate the rewritten chapter is about a third of the way through. It's a sort of three-act chapter, and we made it to the end of the first act, a confrontation that convinces Amy she'll have to leave Brian alone for now. The next act will follow her putting together her new life in Seattle, trying to land a job and figure out what else to do with herself--no trivial task, given that her entire reason for moving here is now agressively absenting itself from her life.
The bit of novel I'm entering is actually kind of dangerous. I figured I'd avoid turning Brian into a poor-pitiful-me whiner when I chose Amy's point of view. But she runs the risk of whining her way through the chapter, too. Poor pitiful me, my boyfriend wants nothing to do with me, I'm all alone miles from my family, I'm having trouble finding a job... Damn. My mother could tell you with some confidence that I've always had a tendency to write whiny narrators. I mean, narrators that could give Thomas Covenant a run for his money in the self-loathing and self-pitying races. Go on, ask her about "The View From The Levee" sometime. (I swear I'll redeem that story someday...)
I suspect the way to get a character out of its downward spiral into self-indulgent moping is to throw plot at it. Throw events at that character that force it out of its doldrums and into action. I'd already decided Amy would take her pity-fest for a walk down to Gasworks, and that she'd see Brian there in the middle of his own little wallow--if I look at that eavesdropping incident as an opportunity to throw plot at the narrator, I think it'll move along nicely.
In other news, John and I and some friends just got back from witnessing Johnny Depp's portrayal of Willie Wonka. What can I say but Oh YEAH. I think Roald Dahl would have been very proud.