Last night we had a huge, bird-sized moth in our bedroom! Ugh, I hate moths! And if you can believe it, my husband hates bugs even more than I do, so guess who had to kill the damn thing?!? Ah, the things we do for love…

Fess up Friday:

I haven’t done this in a couple weeks, as I’ve been mostly in reorganizing mode. Well, I’m organized now. 13 chapters have become 18. Seven POV characters have become four. And I am really very happy with the new shape it’s taking.

Hmmm, progress? I don’t really know how to update progress at this point, as there isn’t really the same marker of finished-ness as there was the first time through. All of my chapters are in between some state of sketchily written and second-drafted (one problem chapter is on its fourth or fifth draft, lol). So maybe I’ll just update on precisely what I’ve done in the week?

My second-draft of chapter 1 is being polished up for my writers’ group. Having lost Danny’s father as one of my POV characters, I ended up writing my first chapter from a seven-year-old Danny’s POV, which I was scared to try, but I think it actually turned out well. I wouldn’t want to write from a child’s POV for a whole novel, but just one chapter was a lot of fun.

And having lost their mom as a POV character as well, I’m rewriting my third chapter from Hannah’s POV, when she’s thirteen, and it’s fun to see how the exact same chapter told from a different POV can become so totally different!

I’ve been digging into Hannah a lot this week. She’s Danny’s little sister, and she’ll be between 12 and 18 for the span of the novel. (Danny, Lexi and Sam will be between 16 and 22) Hannah is strange and ethereal and sometimes explosive and very mature for her age. She’s fun to write

But then, I think all my characters are fun to write, because if they weren’t they would be boring

That’s all, really. It’s raining outside. Dylan’s being a surprisingly good boy these past few days. One of his cartoons, Avatar, is really pretty neat. Sims continue to be simmed. Huge and whiny and annoyingly self-indulgent books continue to be read, for some reason. Playing Sheryl Crow’s “Strong Enough” on guitar this week. Eating tortilla chips with cheddar cheese. All that, and killing giant pterodactyl-sized moths at 1:00 a.m.

Did you know that cuteness is a biological construct? The over-sized head, the big wide puppy-dog eyes, cute little button-nose – children are born like that so their parents are inclined not to eat them for breakfast. It enhances the instinct to bond and create a loving attachment to the child. If babies were not born cute, the human race would get to just about the six-week stage where colic sets in.

That is something my character Callie might say. She was so much fun to write, but I have to lose her I think. My novel is too big! She could have her own novel she’s so cool – she was an assistant curator at a zoo and took care of elephants. She was insanely beautiful but didn’t even care, with her hair tied up and her standard zoo khakis – like the love interest in an Indiana Jones movie. She was fiercely intelligent but a terrible housewife. She had two funny and lovable children (who get to stay in the novel). Maybe she will have her own novel one day, because she could. Or maybe she’ll live in a short story. Because unfortunately for them, Danny and Hannah’s mom needs to become a religious zealot. So it was said, and so it was done.

I remember reading somewhere that you can’t learn to write a novel any other way than to just try to write one. So that’s what I’ve been doing these past few months, I suppose – man, like eight months! Novel practice. And I’ve learned quite a bit.

See, I was writing my chapters in short-story mode still, and chapters of a novel are not short stories. They function very differently. It took me a while, but I know that now. I think I’ve got it figured out… think. Though if I really had it figured out, I wouldn’t have to keep re-figuring it out.

I’ve chopped my seven POV characters down to four. (I know, SEVEN??? What the hell was I thinking???) Four is even a lot, but their stories are very closely tied into each other, so I think I can make it work. I want to make it work, because I’m in love with all four of them, and they can’t exist without each other. I’ve also learned, in laying out these new chapters, that I do have one prominent character of the four. And the way I had the novel structured before, he didn’t even get his own chapter until chapter five! That can’t work!

It’s not at all a waste though. Not at all! Eight months of practice means that I have the story very well sketched out at this point. I have plot points and scenes that have inspired further plot points and scenes, I have chapters in all states of finished-ness, all the way through the end. It won’t all get used, and the ending could very probably change again, as it has already changed five times so far. But basically, I have a novel, and now I just have to put it together. Actually, I have about five novels, and I’ll save the leftovers for scraps to use later

It’s just a little disheartening, having spent eight months and then starting over. But hell, maybe I could even call that my my shitty first draft? You know, the first draft that goes straight down the crapper? Or at the very least, a .75 draft. Yeah, maybe that’s what I was doing. I think I would feel better if I could pretend that was what I was doing. You can humor me, maybe.

No real word or chapter count yet at this point. I’m still in re-organizing mode. I have all of the chapters written, and none of them at the same time. How is that for progress?

My child plays with his trucks and tries to make a “vroom” noise, but instead ends up sounding like the “grrr” of a monster. It’s funny

I don’t know how he ended up being such a boy - trucks, cars, tractors, airplanes, digging in the mud, bugs! Oh the bugs! There must be something to cultural gender stereotypes, because I swear we had nothing to do with this. We’re computer nerds, people!

not a writer:

novel stats:
52,500 wds.
159 pages
ch. 5 of 13

Chapter five is coming along. Chapter five is a boy chapter - well, he’s not a boy, but a young man I guess. And it’s really fun to try to dig into a male mind, imagine how on earth one manages to get pee on the rim of the toilet, especially when you’ve been doing it for twenty-something years, lol. And what, exactly, is the fascination with lesbians to a man anyway? Considering the fact that they have no interest in men! Hubby is probably sick of all the questions I’m asking him.

These next few chapters are the part of the book I’m nervous about writing – where people are going to be mad, but I don’t want it to turn into a soap opera. Where people will be sad, but I don’t want anyone crying, “oh, pity me!” Where people make mistakes (and I have to let them!), and deal with the consequences. Eeek!

I guess if I end up turning it into melodrama, I can always try again. That’s why we have second drafts, right?

Chair graphic is gone! Colors changed! You really have no idea how proud I am, simply of the task of having not broken the damn thing in the process

My child keeps bringing me sock lint off the floor and saying “bug.” One of these days he’s going to bring me an actual bug and I’m going to freak out.

not a writer:

novel stats:
49,100 wds
150 pages
working on chapter 5 of 13

That’s a freaking lot of words for not even 5 full chapters, with 8 more to go. Crap! What, do I think I’m John Irving or something??? I do know there will be some skinnier chapters coming up, but man! I’m going to have some cutting to do.

Had a conversation with hubby this week that unraveled another huge thread in my novel – about how you grow up with this image of your parents and who they were, whether that is good or bad – and then upon becoming an adult, you start to see them through entirely different eyes. Were the horrible things they did really so horrible, or are they redeemable? And you find out other things about them, less than noble things, secrets they kept from you and mistakes they might have made, things you didn’t know they were even capable of doing, or might have done, that causes you to think about them as entirely different people.

And what does this mean of your childhood memories then? Does it make them less valid?

And crap, I’m a parent now. I can’t help but wonder in what ways I will inevitably fuck up my own child. Because everyone does it. It cannot be avoided. I’ll leave you with that happy thought, lol

They’re cutting down all my baby’s trees! He loved to hug those trees. There were four of them in front of our house, and he would run from tree to tree hugging them. I don’t know where he learned that. I mean, sure I’m a tree-hugging hippie, but I don’t think I’ve actually hugged one in front of him before. But he did. He hugged trees and it was cute. But he won’t be hugging those trees anymore

So, I have a shamefully dorky confession to make. You all know I am the biggest dork alive. I mean, there are no illusions of coolness here, so I’ll just come out with it. I write a little blog about my Simmies, narrating their adventures as I play them - something like a soap opera. It’s stupid most of the time, it attempts to be funny (it probably fails), it is ridiculously dramatic. But I check my site stats and people spend hours reading this thing, people come back every day to read it, so there must be some merit. Some of it may be irrelevant to people who don’t play the game, but anyway, I just wanted to say that it’s there. There, I feel better now.

not a writer:

novel stats:
46,900 wds. (~43%)
144 pages
Starting ch. 5 of 13

Just plugging along. Starting chapter five, polishing up chapter four for my writers group to read. Man, I’m coming up on the half-way point soon. That’s a little exciting.

I think I’ve mourned and come to accept the fact that one of my characters does die. Yes, she does. It fits the story too. It’s going to be sad

not a photog:

I’m sorry, but how cute are they???