Am slowly reclaiming the part of me that is the writer. Saw Austin Camacho on Monday, when he dropped by for coffee and (ice cream) cake. Had a wonderful conversation. He gave me some great tips on how to make better use of my Facebook page and/or Twitter account.
He also later dropped me a note about an upcoming meeting of MWA here in Virginia, next April. Would love to go. Said I would, but now not sure I can. Have to double-check, but think that in my joy at the thought of reconnecting with writers, I forgot that the day of the meeting is also my mother’s birthday. And I did plan on visiting her in New York.
Meanwhile …
I’ve been working fairly consistently on a manuscript I started many years ago, one I thought I’d be long done with. When I first “picked it up” again, I wondered why in the world I’d stopped working on it. It was nearly done — I thought, but then, as I got deeper into it, I could more clearly see all the flaws that had bothered me. Somewhere along the line, the story had not only lost its heart, it had grown transparently anemic. There were sections that didn’t seem to have even been written by me. No wonder I put it aside.
Then, there was the plot itself. It’s extremely complicated. I’ve spent the last several evenings mapping it out — i.e., trying to disentangle it and remember how I wanted it to end. But then, of course, one of the problems was that I didn’t know how to end it. There were so many possibilities!
I could see why I had made some decisions, but was totally flummoxed as to why I’d made others. So I decided to simply make choices. But then I saw that changing the pattern of the threads in one storyline affected the harmony (and logic) of patterns in others. The whole thing is like one gigantic and very complex puzzle. Being a perfectionist, I still haven’t quite figured it all out.
Then, there was the question of atmosphere. Talk about thin!
Oops! I just noticed that my navigation bar has moved. Why?
Oh, darn! I updated one of my plugins and the new version doesn’t work. Even worse, all the coding (that I oh-so-carefully put in) is now gone, too!
I sooo love technology, but sometimes … well, sometimes I can’t stand it.
And now it’s 1:30 in the morning and I haven’t done any work on my novel — except to think about it.
I did want to add that. I find myself dreaming about the story, the characters, which is good. Except I still don’t know how it ends …
Well, I guess it’s good night, then!
Again, thanks for having a look — and best wishes for a good, solid (writing) day!
Yours,
