The irritation Sunday, August 26, 2012

Yesterday’s post was about how excited I was by providential inspirations. I went to bed last night praying, “I will go to Sunday School and I will get there at a reasonable time.”

I woke up, got ready, put on my cross and went downstairs saying, “All right, Lord. Tell the devil that there will be no nonsense today! No giant Shelob spiders hanging across my doorway. No stolen cars or crazed neighbors or inane Sunday morning emergency roadwork to hold me back. No nonsense today!” And there wasn’t. I got to church and arrived at Sunday School with no problems.

Shortly after I arrived, however, the chain of my cross slid from my neck into my hand. I pulled the whole thing into my hand and found the cross was missing.

I love my cross. The chain was chosen by my mother and the cross by my grandmother. I love it because of its beauty, because of who gave it to me and because of what it represents.

There were 2 others before it.

The first was when I was 14; I’ll admit that I wanted it at first because Agent Scully wore a cross all the time and I just really wanted one. I lost that cross when I was 18, some time in my second or third quarter at Ohio State. I felt it loosen from my neck when I was lying in bed and I never found the cross or chain again.

The second one I received the birthday or Christmas after losing the first (possibly at Easter, I can barely remember). I lost that one when I was about 20 and at the grocery store. I had leaned over my cart to pick up my case of Aquafina, my chain caught on the bottom of the grocery cart, ripped from my neck, the cross went flying and was never found.

For the first two crosses, I spent some time thinking about the life I was living and I was clearly able to discern why I’d lost my crosses; I simply didn’t deserve them.

This time, however, I could not immediately see any wrongdoing. All that happened was that I praised God last night and I got up this morning intent on going to Sunday School.

Perhaps it was because as I was walking to my car I asked God not to send me a crazy storm like losing my sight or a limb or a family member to make me praise Him because I said we both knew I didn’t need that to praise Him. He already had my attention; I didn’t need a challenge.

Perhaps it was this declaration that the devil asked for just an irritation. Perhaps catastrophe would make me stronger, but what about life’s small irritations?

Twice before today, I’ve just barely caught my cross falling off the chain because I was in such a rush in the morning that I hadn’t fastened the clasp properly and once again, after rushing, the cross slid from the chain.

When I noticed my cross was missing, I immediately stood and looked all over the floor for it and left the church looking for it across the parking lot. When I looked in my car, I remembered the reason I was at the church so early that day and returned to Sunday School class.

I texted my mother and shared with her that I knew this was just the devil trying to irritate me, to stress me out unnecessarily and distract me and he did it briefly. It took about ten minutes before I was absorbed in the lesson again, but I though that though, I was irritated, the cross was replaceable and when I replaced it, I would remember who gave me the precious one. I was not going to let an irritation distract me from the lesson.

I relaxed and listened and added my two cents to the lesson and only afterward, when I happened to look down and under the seat in front of me that I found my cross.

I’m not sure what else to say about today. The point that I’d made in Sunday School today was the same point I’d reiterated in my latest edit of my novel yesterday: We can’t always see the big picture, but all things work for His greater glory; it may seem “bad” or irritating to us today, but all things work so that He will get the glory. That’s all I’ve got to say about today.

Advertisement

618 words! Saturday, August 25, 2012

I decided on a brand new drastic change for the novel today.

In what is currently Chapter 17, I’ve got this nice dialogue between Damen and Brit about God. Damen is an agnostic and Brit is a Christian and they argue about God’s will. The rest of the chapter details Damen’s attendance in Brit’s church as well as a brief visit in Sunday School. I edited the conversation between Brit and Damen and continued with the rest of the chapter.

It was not until I was nearly done with the chapter that it occurred to me that this conversation was way over the head of my character Brit Leighson. It is very clear that I am speaking through my character in this scene and while I still want to get across my message, it sounds false coming from Brit. It sounds as if I’m pigeonholing her into a personification of myself, which is what I really don’t want to do.

I thought about this for a while. “Who should have this argument with Damen without it sounding trite or false?” Finally, it occurred to me that it should be Damen vs. the Sunday School teacher Ms. LaRoe, who I’ve not yet given a first name, even though I know she’ll also feature in Jill. I started to rewrite both scenes, but in minutes, I hit Undo and let what I had stand because it looked like too much work to edit. It ate at me though until I finally took a new document and started writing and deleting and writing and deleting until I had the precise scene I wanted with Damen and Ms. LaRoe.

I looked at my new creation and was immediately disheartened. Here I am trying to reduce word count, but my new scene looked almost twice as long as the original text. I started to throw away what I’d written, but I shook my head and looked at the word count for the original scene. 618 words. I frowned and figured as long as the new scene was only 200 or so words more, I’d figure out what else I could cut to make it fit. To my absolute shock, the new scene was exactly 618 words. I was so shocked by this that I had to screenshot it to believe it was real!

I know there’s some editing to do for this part of the chapter, but still! Whoo boy! This is the kind of coincidence that makes you want to go to church and have “Hallelujah good time!”

Ellipses’ wonder… Friday, August 24, 2012

I mentioned yesterday that I’d begun re-reading Flight this week. I mostly enjoy reading it with this air of superiority as I think, “Ha! What a foolish twenty-two-year old I was! Look at that…I can’t even use ‘however’ properly.”

It was as I was thinking this that it occurred to me…I use ellipses…a lot.

I remember a creative writing professor mentioning to me that one of the banes to her writing was her use of italics because she just wanted to get her points across and I’d decided at the moment to never let that be a problem of mine. I’ve been so careful with my italics (in the novel; on here it’s a free-for-all) that I never even saw my problem with ellipses until just this week.

My first novel, full of missing or inappropriate words and comma abuse, is just riddled with ellipses…and so is Damen…

My ellipsis problem just popped in the midst of reading…and in horror I saw them all over the place in Damen. Every other sentence seems to include them, in both the dialogue and the prose. It’s just baffling to me that I’ve missed something that seemed like such an easy mistake to catch. In just one page, I removed at least six of them, shaking my head with each deletion…

Perhaps, I’ve just grown so accustomed to using them as a way of setting a tone that I never noticed it was getting out of hand…

Even now…I’m well into a secondary edit of Damen and I’m only now able to see how often I use an ellipsis when a comma would do or let a sentence trail for no reason at all…

I think this is really when I enjoy re-reading old things I’ve written. I get to haughtily look back on old works as I think of the progress I’ve made only to be humbled when I realize how far I have to go before I’m anything like the authors I admire.

A well-read day Thursday, August 23, 2012

I’ve not written anything today (though, I may end up writing a little after writing this), but I’m not at all troubled by this.

I’ve been reading a ton; like, flipping between three books within the same hour kind of reading. Hunger Games, The Silence of the Lambs and also my book, Flight. I made Flight into a Kindle book for my mother to force her to read something I’ve written, though a year later, she still hasn’t, and I like to see where I was nearly four years ago when I first finished it. I like to read Flight as a Kindle book on my own, however, because unlike reading it from a Word doc or even online, I can’t suddenly stop reading and begin to edit, even though I may be compelled to do so. My errors are trapped in the ebook and I get to face them without means, albeit temporarily, to fix them. I’m not sure how vain it is to enjoy reading your own work, but I like it.

After watching The Silence of the Lambs on Sunday, I’m further compelled to read the book because it’s just so much better, which is quite a feat considering it’s also my favorite film of all time. Every time I watch the movie, however, I just have to read the book and since I’ve now read Hannibal and enjoy it’s ending so much, I know I’ll be re-reading that too. I’m still at the beginning of Hunger Games, but I enjoy it a lot.

I bring up all that I’m reading at the moment without a real way to describe why. A quote from Sex and the City, I think, summarizes my point nicely: “(Samantha) was one of the only people I knew who felt that proximity to beauty made her feel more attractive.” (from Models and Mortals) So, before I continue writing, I think I’ll do just a bit more reading.

From there to here Wednesday, August 22, 2012

I think I may finally understand why I want to badly to keep the character of Dana Barrington in Damen.

It occurred to me just after I reviewing yesterday’s post, but I wanted to sleep on it and take a break from writing to be really sure of what I want to do, which is remove Amber’s suicide attempt, but I’ll get to that part later.
Here is an except from Flight and all that I ever wrote of Dana Barrington’s character in that book:

Olivia stepped off the elevator on her floor and trekked toward her apartment door, weighed down by the stacks of files in her bag and those being carried under her arm. All of the documents and images that pertained to Dana Barrington’s rape case were in her possession and she was scheduled to testify at the trial the next day. She knew she was ready for the trial as she had testified at many previous to this one, but she hauled everything home to review just as a comfort to herself.

Dana Barrington was a high school student who had been brought into a hospital after being found bleeding profusely in an alley. She had attempted to perform an abortion on herself with a wire hanger and nearly killed herself in the process. After she was admitted, the detectives learned that she had been raped several months earlier and that she could not tell anyone about what had happened to her. Dana had said that she was too embarrassed to say anything because she had walked home alone and she knew she should not have.

The rapist, Gregory Lars, had been apprehended by the DNA provided by Dana’s baby who was born premature, but healthy, two months later. Lars had been preying on adolescent girls in the city for years, but it was only with this case that they had the DNA needed to convict him.

On Friday, Olivia was supposed to testify about Lars’ behavior when he was finally caught. She had no qualms about testifying in front of Lars, who had actually hit her in the stomach while she had him against a wall, but her nerves were slightly on edge when it came to facing the victim again. Dana’s large brown eyes displayed nothing but innocence and she knew only too well that a child born to a raped victim, especially one as young as Dana, would not be as loved as he could be. She knew that upon seeing Dana in court, she would want to tell her what was coming in her life and what she should tell her son as he grew up, but she knew she could not. It was not her place to do so.

…

Friday January 19, 2007
New York County Courthouse

Olivia stood in a corridor outside of the courtroom where she had just testified against Gregory Lars looking for Dana Barrington and her family. When it seemed like she had missed them in the bustle of people flowing out of the courtroom at recess just before noon, Olivia spotted a sixteen-year-old with brown hair and large brown eyes holding a baby carrier.

“Olivia!” Dana said, the moment her eyes reached Olivia’s.

She handed the baby to her mother standing next to her, crossed the corridor in three steps and hugged Olivia.

“Thank you,” she said, tears welling in her eyes. “Thank you so much.”

“It’s no problem. It’s what I do.”

…and that’s it. That’s all I wrote about Dana Barrington’s character in Flight, so I’ve been so puzzled why this character in particular has caused me so much stress in the past couple years, but finally! Finally, I think I know why.

Dana’s story is brief, but very sad. Here she was, a young college bound girl, with almost no problems at all and, through no fault of her own, she was attacked and impregnated. Dana did what I considered I would have done had I been in her situation and pretended it didn’t happen until the problem, literally, grew too big for her to ignore.

When I think of this character, I feel like I need to see her through this. I need to see that she’s happy and healthy and that life goes on. Not because I’ve personally experienced this, but because I just need to know that at least somewhere, life goes on.

Yes, I know that these are fictional characters of my own making, but I feel them and know them as if these were people I could touch. For the same reason, I couldn’t really understand the ending of my novel until I realized where Corey could get his comeuppance (much, much later and in a completely different book) because I just couldn’t leave things the way they were. I needed to see life go on and these characters move forward, even though I wouldn’t be writing about them after I’d moved them on.

So…

I’ve decided to leave Dana firmly in the background along with others who just briefly see light like Tatum and Paige and Tabitha. Amber, however, won’t be pushed to the background, but she won’t have nearly as large a part to play anymore. Instead, I’ve decided to pull Damen’s mother Angel into the foreground where she belongs and use her drama to provide the conflict. In short, I’m completely changing the plot of my novel well into my second edit.

It’s not as bad as it sounds, though. Yes, there will be far more scene rewrites than I wanted at this stage in the novel, but in the process of just reviewing my “points” and chapter summaries, I’ve nixed 3 chapters and removed several smaller storylines that irked because they were originally necessary to avoid plot holes.

I prayed about this last night and asked God if this was really what He wanted of me. Not just the novel changes, but the idea of writing at all. Today, my emotions have run the gamut, from hot/cold, east/west, whatever, but I ended up with a clear path.

I’m not sure I’m willing claim any of this as providential inspiration because God works in mysterious ways and I think it a bit too bold say something like that, but I can’t help noticing how when I really, really asked for help, a calm path came to me.

300 words Tuesday, August 21, 2012

I suppose I could say I made up for lost time from the last few days by spending the majority of today editing. I cut a little more than five thousand words today bringing me down to 158K; it’s almost like deleting an entire chapter.
What’s further gratifying is that I still managed to cut 5K words while adding a scene that helped explain a few things without spending another 10K words to “tell” it.

I jumped into Chapter 16 as well, but hit a road block with exactly 300 words that I winced to delete and eventually just hit Ctrl+Z until I had them back.

It’s just 300 words and exemplifies Damen and Brit’s characters so well…It’s just 300 words…

I find myself in a familiar predicament because these 300 words are really the bulk of the 38K I’ve left to cut. I keep telling myself, “It’s just X words. I’ll wait until I finish this edit and, if I’m X words over my limit, I’ll cut them then.”

Three hundred here. Two hundred there. Four hundred in this chapters, but I’ve already cut so much there as it is! It’s the same story every few thousand words.

I think what’s got me doing a complete 180 on where I was a few days ago is that I, against my better judgement, researched the industry’s standard on newbie author’s again, and it hit me: I may never even come close to publishing this thing if it’s not below 120K. And, that’s a discouraging thought when I’ve got 20-some chapters left and almost 40K to delete.

Today, as I was getting my braids done, I wondered about which of three storylines would have to get the axe. On the gallows stand Dana Barrington’s story that has, on multiple occasions, received the governour’s call the moment it had the rope around its neck; Amber’s story that was once supposed to be a focal point of the book; and Corey’s backstory who, while not new to the rope, believes that the pardon is inevitable.

I’ve considered dropping Dana Barrington’s story so often that searching for her name in this blog actually yields its own page of results. Amber and Corey, however, are relatively new considerations.

Corey is supposed to just take off randomly some day and return with a tale of his father’s hypocrisy. His story keeps the strain between Damen’s dual friendship with both Corey and Brit going. Amber is supposed to attempt suicide because of Jessie Clarke, which makes her story really more of an extension of Jessie’s character. At one point, this was the climax of the novel, but now I find myself completely lacking a climax at all, except for the very, very end.

If I cut any of these three stories, I may be able to save almost 20K words, but I’m still at a loss here. I feel like a spoiled brat whose favorite horse has had foals, but I have to give up one of them. Yes, I’ve a dozen other beloved horses in the stables, but I want all the ones that belong to me!

Brilliant Movie Night Monday, August 20, 2012

Yesterday evening, I took down my braids which is normally a 4-6 hour event. I awoke from my usual Sunday afternoon nap to find The Miracle Worker playing on my so-called Dorienne TV and from there, after crying at the end like I always do, I queued The Silence of the Lambs and after that watched The Godfather. Throughout these cinematic adventures and humming the tune to The Godfather through half the night, I completely forgot to post anything. All this notwithstanding, I didn’t really write anything yesterday, so there was nothing about which to even write.

I’d hoped to get the book down the 150s by today, but I’m either experiencing my first real migraine or I’ve got an emergency trip to my ophthalmologist coming in the next week since I’ve not been well all day and my eye has been in constant pain. While this does pose a few problems when it comes to staring at a bright laptop screen to create, I’ve worked through worse pain, so I’ll just chalk up today to simple sloth.

I’m off tomorrow as well and the night is not over, so if I can push forward to write here, I can at least begin the re-write of Chapter 14.

I’ve got to see you again Saturday, August 18, 2012

Norah Jones ~ Come Away With Me

I’ve not done a song-titled post in a while and since I was little stumped on a title for today, this fits. I think I miss the days when I just had “Mission of the Month Post #12” posts, but anyway…

I’m finally starting to face the realization that I may never get this novel down to 120K. Firmly into 163K as I start reviewing Chapter 14 again, it occurs to me that unless I completely cut a storyline (i.e., I’ll probably have to nix Amber MacDonaugh’s part of the tale), I probably won’t come anywhere close to 120K words.

That said, I have got quite a few chapters to go and I’ve been averaging around 800-word deletions per chapter. My Chapter Details (I’m soooo glad I made these) shows me that I’ve got a lot of deleting and rearranging to do as well, so maybe I’ll pick it up to 1500 words removed per chapter, but it’s quite likely that I’ll not get this finished product down to 120K; this doesn’t upset me as much though. I think I’d rather have a 500-paged great story than strip it down to 300 pages of bilge.

Again, though…I’ve still got more than 20 chapters left to go and Chapter 14’s probably got at least a 3K cut in its future to bring me within 40K. I may still get there…maybe.

Reading makes me want to write Friday, August 17, 2012

I’m a very competitive person and since I was in my teens, I often viewed the literary works of others as a possible threat to my success unless the authors were already long dead. Why I thought this is, even now, a bit of a mystery to me. Maybe it was just because I didn’t want anyone to do what I did too or something along those lines… Either way, I didn’t do a lot of reading in my mid teens which is when I did the most of my writing until my early 20s. Recently, however, the tides have changed and reading the works of others gets me even more excited to continue with my own.

I finished Octavia Butler’s Kindred this evening since I got to one of those points where I’ve only got about 50 pages left and I just can’t put it down until I finished. It was a good book, but her ending, like with Fledgling, left me staring at the last few words like “That’s it??!?” I’m always wanting more.

Since I’ve got a cycle going where I’m reading a Star Wars book, a more contemporary book and then a classic book, I’ve replaced Kindred with the first of The Hunger Games books, which has already garnered me a few likes on Facebook.

I love starting new books like I love creating new book ideas. No longer do I consider the works of others to be in competition with me. No longer do I fear losing my voice or finding myself writing in the style of a favorite author. Now, I view other literature as a chance to see how someone else “does it” and not only do I then get to enjoy someone else’s story, I get to become a stronger writer in the process.

Think, Breathe, Live Thursday, August 16, 2012

I’m re-reviewing Chapter 11 and the novel is down to 165K words.

As I wind down to my birthday, my latest completion date, I think it’s time to put aside almost all other priorities to just get this thing done. I don’t even want to name all the other things I’ve got going on right now. I just need to think, breathe and live this novel for the next 6 weeks.

When I get up in the morning, work on the novel. During my lunch break (when I get one), work on the novel. When I come home from first-job, work on the novel.

It’s been more than 4 years since I’ve last been able to push away from my desk confidant that my novel was, once and for all, done and I long to revel in that sensation again.

I’ve been so close for probably the last 18 months, which, to be honest, may be the only reason why I’ve continued pushing forward, but this time I’m actually close to being done. It’s not even about the final word count anymore. It’s just being able to hold up my book (on a thumb drive, of course) and know that it’s complete; that I can have other people read what I’ve written without having to make excuses for missing words or a page full of run-on sentences.

I’m so close.

Chipping away Wednesday, August 15, 2012

I’ve brought the book down by another 1100 words tonight. To be honest, I’d hoped to be into the 150s by now, but I’m chipping away at these chapters little by little. Since I’ve still got 30 chapters left to scrutinize, hopefully I’ll find a way to keep up the 1000-word cut per chapter for a while longer.

I remember reading somewhere (a blog or an article, or it’s possible I just made it up) that cutting parts of my story should hurt (maybe it was something about editing films…). The more I love it, the more it should get cut. I immediately shook my head when I saw read heard came across this because it just sounds too hard.

How can you cut something you love? I love the fingers on my left hand because they’re double-jointed, but I can’t imagine the pain of cutting those either. So, I’m left to wonder what I’ll do when I starve this novel down to almost bare bones, but I’m still over 120K. And 120K is still far over the upper end for most first-time authors. I’ve read that the book should really be no more than 100K, but I knew I’d never get this down to 100K from the moment I thought up my protagonist.

I suppose I can just pray that someone, somewhere will want to pick up this long-winded book and, perhaps, between the lengths of your Twilights and your Fire and Ices and the fact that eBooks are thriving, no one will really care about the length of my story when I’m done, as long as I’ve written well.

So, a seal walked into a club… Tuesday, August 14, 2012

…it said, “Ouch!”

I’d forgot to post yesterday since I’d had such a wonderful time with my grandmother all day and though I’ve not written anything for close to 48 hours, life is still good.

I’ve not much to say to tonight, but knowing how this off-cycle works, I know if I miss one day, it’s easy to miss another and another until I’ve gone 3 weeks without even looking at the novel, hence the rationale for a post this evening.

I suppose everyone needs a little something to remind them of all the grander things they’ve been neglecting to make way for the simpler things and I’d prefer not to get to a point, where, as my mother always says, “I’m surviving, but not thriving.”

Another fine Sunday Sunday, August 12, 2012

As I continue on this Christian walk, I occasionally find myself not wanting to attend church. Folks can make half a dozen arguments surrounding why church is not entirely necessary for a Christian to still walk with Christ; my favorite: going to church no more makes you a Christian than standing in a garage makes you a car. That said, this Christian needs to attend church, so when I don’t have the drive to go, I face a dilemma.

Today, however, more out of routine than anything else, I pulled myself from bed this morning, texted my choir director for the songs we were to sing to day since I didn’t get to go to practice yesterday and dragged myself to church. I even said aloud, “I really don’t want to go to church this morning.” but I made myself do it, again, primarily out of routine.

As always, I felt better once I got there and received another wonderful method about how Satan operates, but the delight from the day came from afternoon service. I attend a small church with less than a hundred people attending weekly and typically, if I sit near the back of the church, I can more easily ignore the pastor’s request for attendance at our four o’clock service. Today, however, I sat in the second row and it became very difficult to suddenly find interest in something on my phone when Pastor requested that we return for the late service.

I was about to flip a coin on my attendance, but after a sermon about being judged by my acts and being stricken from the book of life if those acts measured up, I didn’t find it wise to leave church attendance to a coin flip. Despite my weekly after-church fatigue, I went to second service, knowing that it’s rare for me to hear a sermon as good as the one from the morning service. The sermon was as expected, but my “reward” of sorts was a few moments where my mind drifted and I was able to come up with a brand new book idea, tentatively titled “Earth trippin'”; albeit the title needs work.

After hearing a sermon that was so much more like bible study than a lecture that I feel more comfortable about my Christian walk and the concept of death, I ended the day with a brand new book idea.

God is great.

48K to go Saturday, August 11, 2012

I managed to halve Chapter 7 and as I’m left to consider whether I should split Chapter 8 and include the first part with Chapter 7, the novel now stands at 168K words. I’ve got just 48K words to cut before I’ll have an actual, publishable novel. The thought of it gives me chills.

That said, there’s a chance that even at 120K, I won’t be able to find someone to pick it up, but at least I’ll have accomplished something few have.

I’ve got three free days coming with and given that I’m more or less caught up with first-job, I’ll have this entire to write. While it’s unlikely that I’ll have this novel ready with my latest 1st of September deadline, I’m really, really pushing for it. My first novel, Flight, was supposed to be complete on my 22nd birthday and wasn’t truly finished until the day after it and with all the edits and additions, wasn’t actually complete until about a year later, but on I press.

I’ve got 20 days to get this thing ready. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’ll do it.

Ten days into this… Friday, August 10, 2012

So, ten days into this fast tells me how spoiled my mind and body have become. The urge to do what I’ve always done is so great, but I’m still holding on.

I didn’t actually load Minecraft today. I checked the forums and wiki to see what had become of the 1.3 update and to see if my mods had updated. I learned that I’m actually better off waiting to play since I would have had to go without my favorite mods for this long anyway, but the itch to play is so great that I’ve been getting headaches.

I haven’t gone out to get fast food, but I’m in the mood for a treat, so I’m about to go out and buy some cookies to bake. I was $17.00 under my shopping budget on Monday, so this is just a little bit extra, while remaining in that limit.

When I have a day at first-job where I have to remind myself that I accepted a position that was 30% management and 70% social work, I know I need a (non-alcoholic) treat. I accepted it, so I’ve only done this to myself. I just really wish I’d majored in social work (or even better, psychology) to prepare me for the career into which I’ve fallen.

It’s not likely I’ll be writing tonight, but with this coming Tuesday as a day off and a 3-day weekend for myself ahead of me, I think I’ll still be all right and I may even bring the book down to the 150Ks.