This Chapter Will Kill

If you follow my book blog, you’ve seen my happy announcements about the current edit of the Screwing Up Time sequel. Everything was moving along at a nice clip. I told my primary betas (my alpha betas) that I’d be ready to give them the book sometime next week....I was naïve.

I’d yet to meet the chapter from Gehenna. The bog of writerly progress. The editing equivalent of writer’s block. Granted, it is an overlong chapter. So I could see it taking longer than the other chapters. But I had steeled my resolve. I’d locked and loaded my writerly skills: Red pen? Check. Outline to verify earlier plot twists? Check. Kick-the-chapter’s-butt attitude? Check.

Then the chapter kicked back. I read the opening paragraphs. I swallowed. The most boring tripe ever written. But that’s okay. That’s why there’s editing. So I fixed the opening. Then I read it again the next day. YAWN. So I fixed it again. And refused to re-read it the next day. I moved on. The next scene read clunky. The plot was there, but it read like a plot outline. In response, I played a game of Free Cell. (For non-writers, the point of playing Free Cell is to win the game and take that confidence into the edit. Pathetic, I know. But you do what works. I don’t call it “procrastination.” I call it “preparation”.) Afterwards, I went back to the clunky scene and made it less clunky-ish. I decided not to go back and reread.

The next scene was also sleep inducing—of course, climbing a staircase is never a hot plot point, but a writer must do what she can. Normally, you include some character’s emotional reveal. But these are teenage boys (not girls), and they don’t share their emotions as they tread the steps. I did what I could and promised myself that I’d rework it later.

After two games of Free Cell (I lost the first one and you can only edit with a sense of well-being), I read the next scene, which was one of the emotional high points of the novel. The scene was two paragraphs long. What was I thinking? I can understand this mistake in a first draft because I’m an underwriter. But I’d already edited this chapter once before. What was wrong with me then?! I needed multiple games of Free Cell and squares of chocolate to get my writing mojo back.

So now I’m just over halfway through this chapter—I’m beginning to think that it reproduces during the night. Every day I work on it, there seem to be more pages to work on. Then, this morning I woke up with a nasty cold. (Which I’ve already had this season.) And I think it’s the chapter. It’s trying to kill me. And I’m being to feel like I want to succumb. 

Finals

Luke and Ariel have started finals. This means Ariel needs a steady supply of chocolate and is willing to even eat 85% to 90% cocoa dark chocolate, which tastes like dirt. She’d prefer chocolate with sea salt, but that bar is mine. She had a bar of chili chocolate and a bag of Lindt truffles, but she’s already gone through them. Now she’s eating dirt. Too bad, baby girl.

Luke does not have a chocolate fetish. He just gets a dazed expression on his face and mutters imprecations against one of his professors. The “dark side” of Luke amazes us all because Luke has always defended his professors, explaining that every thing they do is for the benefit of the student. This semester changed that. Prof Bad Guy started off okay. He was genial enough. Then he began giving odd writing assignments. He’d give the students something to read and they were supposed to respond to it, but not actually respond about it. It was to be a springboard to something greater. (What that “greatness” was continues to remain a mystery to all the students.) The grading was arbitary: an A was “Wow me,” a B was “not quite a wow,” a C was “sticking to the topic of the reading material.” Okay, right—can you say “totally arbitrary?” Then midterm came around. Profs are supposed to tell students what their grades are. The problem is BG hadn’t graded any papers yet. Oops.

Then BG started missing the occasional class. And then there was the week he took off because his kids were on spring break, and he wanted to go on vacation with them. The problem when a prof misses a lot of classes is that he can’t give you assignments. Now it’s the end of term and the papers he was supposed to assign hadn’t been. Guess what? He assigned them (2 or 3 short ones and 2 long ones). Just turn in the papers the first day of finals. Even Luke can’t defend that.

I’m so glad I graduated a long time ago. Time for a piece of that chocolate with sea salt. Yum!

Maybe I Don't Want A Castle

On Saturday, we’re leaving for vacation in Orlando. That means that in the near future (tonight) I have to begin packing. Since the kids are 18, nearly 17, 14, and 12, you’d think I’d be set. I pack my stuff and they pack theirs. The problem is we’ve done that before. Some people end up with no pajamas or no socks or no underwear—this is bad. So, they make piles, and I inspect and approve.

Orlando should be perfect. Too early for nasty heat, low 80s is just fine. Too early for bugs. I was in Florida a couple of times when I was a young teen and the one thing I remember was the bugs—winged, flying, biting vermin-ish insects.

Florida sounded lovely until I heard about The Castle. There’s a famous writer (NYT bestselling writer—Ally Carter) who’s going on vacation at the same time we are. Except she’s going to a castle. She and her writing friends are renting a castle. In Ireland. I want to go to a castle too. Granted I am very thankful for my husband and four children and would never change places with her (she’s single). Though I do occasionally covet her bestseller author status—the closest I get to that is my faithful blog readers (thank you). But I think I could do the castle thing too.

Ally’s been blogging about buying for her trip—“Ooo these socks would be so great for the castle.” I’ve been thinking, “Ooo, how much underwear does each family member need, and do I need to buy more.” Ally says, “We have to make cupcakes in the castle.” Hold the boat! Why would anyone want to bake cupcakes in a castle? I’d be buying chocolate and saying, “Oh, this Lindt extra dark chocolate with pear and almonds will taste so good in front of a roaring hearth fire in the castle! And I need that Lindt E.D. intense orange as well for sustenance when I don’t want to get out of the feather bed in the morning.”

I do think there could be one caveat to the whole Irish castle thing. There’s a possibility that is especially frightening to me. What if, being this is Ireland and all, I caught the James Joyce progressive incoherency disorder?! Not many people know of the disease. It’s a particularly virulent virus named after the writer who first contracted the disease. It leaves the infected writer unable to write antecedents for pronouns (A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man). As the disease develops, it leaves the writer unable to craft a story that makes any sense at all. If you don't believe me, pick up The Dubliners.

Currently, there’s no immunization for the virus. Maybe I don’t want to vacation in a castle. Orlando sounds really good—as long as there aren’t any bugs.