Good News/Bad News
Good: I actually pulled out the hard copy of the last completed draft of Warped, the plot timeline I reorganized a few months ago, and the most recent, barely started, draft so I could jump start it all over again.
I went through and edited stuff I had already written, and began to add more to the stuff.
Bad: I am being sidetracked.
In the last week and a half, I have written over eleven thousand words on this short story that came into my head a couple of weeks ago. It's a sort of Bourne thing but from the point of view of this woman who happens to cross the path of our fugitive spy/assassin. There's funny and danger in it. But it definitely is a short story. Well, at over 10k words, it may end up being a novella. Either way, though.
Have an excerpt:
[Miles is the assassin hiding in Delanie's hotel room in Italy. She just had a conversation with one of the special agents leading the search for Miles. Now, she's not sure if Miles was ever telling her the truth.]
Delanie backed away, but not before he grabbed onto her arm and put the weapon in her hand. “The safety is off,” he said as he stepped away from her with his hands raised. “I may be some form of a monster, I admit that. But I am not the monster that he described. If you believe him, if you think that’s what I am, then shoot. You can keep me from running, and they’ll come when they hear the gunshot. You won’t even have to scream."
Miles stood several feet away from her. He faced her head on, his hands raised. Delanie stood in shock, holding the weapon limply in her hand. She looked at Miles, then at the gun. “This is a glock nine millimeter. The magazine holds fifteen rounds.”
“Seventeen.”
Delanie’s large eyes met his, which seemed pleasantly surprised. “Seventeen,” she corrected herself.
“Do you know what to do with it?” Miles asked.
Delanie automatically held up the weapon, and cupped her left hand over the right, and the rest of the grip. Miles twitched a finger at her. “Choke up a little on the grip, make it level with your line of sight. Good.”
It didn’t seem to faze him at all that a lethal weapon was being pointed at his head. Delanie was certainly being affected by it. Her hands weren’t shaking, but it felt as if the rest of her body was. She stared at Miles over the top of the gun. “What’s your real full name?”
“Miles Benjamin Keep.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-five.”
“What are your parents’ names?”
“Michael and Tish Keep.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“My dad was in the military, so we moved around a lot. I went to three high schools.”
Delanie kept the weapon up and pointed directly at him as she fired off question after question. The frustrating bit was that he was firing off answers just as fast.
“Why did you pick me when you came into the hotel?”
Miles paused and thought for a moment on that one. He took a deep breath before beginning his explanation. “Women tend to listen a little better than men; they are more subtle, and generally, a woman would be more willing to help someone in my situation than a man. I could also tell that you were American from the fact that you were staring at a newspaper that was printed in Italian and not reading it. And you were alone. I figured that from the lack of wedding band or engagement ring on your left hand. I also doubted very much that any respectful boyfriend of yours would let someone who looks like you wander around Italy on her own. It was that, and you were dressed up, your hair was done; you were waiting for someone, and it was very unlikely that you would put that much effort into your appearance just to have lunch with an old girlfriend - “
“Don’t try and flatter me. That’s the oldest trick in the book.”
“I wasn’t. I’m only telling you what my thought process was that led to our meeting downstairs. Lastly, I concluded very quickly that you are intelligent.”
Delanie’s eyebrows raised into her hairline.
“The marks on either side of the bridge of your nose,” Miles indicated. “Those are generally from wearing glasses. You weren’t wearing any at the time, so either you prefer walking around blind in order to save your appearance, or you only need glasses when you read. The marks come from a lot of use, which said to me that you tend to read a lot.” Miles lowered his hands and smiled in spite of the gun still pointed at him. “I only questioned that last conclusion when I noticed the copy of Fifty Shades of Grey in your purse. But, the bookmark was still close to the beginning of the novel.”
Miles rattled off his answer, hardly taking time to breathe in between sentences. Delanie touched the side of her nose and felt the little divot where her reading glasses usually sat. She kept them in her purse as well. As for the book, she rolled her eyes and felt the blush come up to her neck. “For the record, a friend of mine lent that book to me for something to read on the plane. I had a hard time getting into it.” Delanie lowered the gun. “I don’t want to shoot you.”
“You have no idea how happy that makes me on both counts.” Miles approached her. She set the gun in his hand without being asked.
----
Good: I remember when I reorganized the timeline for Warped thinking how horribly overwhelming it all was, and how much work I'd have to put into it in order to overhaul it like that. However, when I pulled the timeline out today, it seemed tackleable. My goal is to condense the first few chapters even more so than I have done in the past in order to get to the meat of the story faster. And that is the biggest problem, the beginning chapters. Not overwhelming. I just need a flamethrower.
BAD!: SIDETRACKED! Okay, so there's been this story idea in my head. I've had it for, maybe the past three months or so, maybe less. It was inspired by my listening to Imagine Dragons and Jeremy Renner. Not listening to Jeremy Renner, like he's a voice in my head, but just, you know Jeremy Renner as a whole. I know, I wish I was kidding, but that's 100% true.
It's not science fiction or fantasy. It's a realistic story about an overweight girl in her late twenties, maybe early thirties. Yes, sounds familiar, I know. But the kicker is that she goes through life with the most cynical and sarcastic inner monologue. She's a school teacher and has been life long friends with one of the school science teachers, (Maybe math, I haven't decided.) thus enters Renner into the scenario. It's not really him that I'm writing, he's just the person I pictured when thinking of this character. Anyway, these two are so very tight, they're like Will & Grace, only they're both straight. They've lived in the same town forever, and they were in school together forever. They're just tighter than stretched duct tape. And, overweight girl totally enjoys him because he's kind of screwed up outside of teaching, and he is cynical and sarcastic right with her.
The plot is basically her watching him change into actual nice guy material, which motivates her, in a backwards and cranky way, to try and conquer her own demons. He starts dating again, and she watches it. There are crazy and embarrassing scenes, and so on and so forth. And the kicker is that at the end, our girl does not get the guy. This is realism here, folks. All of this stuff about happy fat couples, The Fat Bachelor, or a skinny girl trapped inside a fat girl's body (That concept made my head burst into flames a little bit.) is complete bull. The fat white girl is rarely pursued by anybody. I do not kid. Of course, I speak from my own experience and no one else's, but I'm pretty damned experienced.
The reason that this whole idea is bad though is because, while I'm trying to work on what is most likely a much more promising project right now, my brain comes up with more ideas for this story. It happened, just now.
Good: I usually stop writing during this season, this time of year. I get depressed and not motivated at all. Somehow, though, I have been writing all through this winter, and most of 2012.
Bad: Most of what I wrote in 2012 was FAN FICTION!
Good: But because of the fan fiction writing, and whatever else I wrote, I have gained a better understanding of editing and keeping pace in my writing. The experience has helped me feel confident now about condensing the chapters in Warped as discussed above. I don't get thoroughly attached to something I write and have a hard time editing it anymore. It's kind of thrilling when you end up highlighting a pointless paragraph of narrative or dialogue and just backspace it into oblivion! No paragraph is too good for me to delete! Unless, you know, it's ridiculously good.
----
What's more is that I recently watched Men in Black 3 for the first time, and I am so in love with time travel. It actually figures that the first readable novel I complete and polish up has time travel in it. MIB3 uses it as a major factor in an excellent plot. The second movie wasn't a lot to shout about, but I really enjoyed this third one. It was really fun and imaginative. And it also brought me back to the truth: that I absolutely have to get this book finished, even if it draws blood from my hair tearing.
Although... Renner is definitely fun to picture while I'm writing...
I went through and edited stuff I had already written, and began to add more to the stuff.
Bad: I am being sidetracked.
In the last week and a half, I have written over eleven thousand words on this short story that came into my head a couple of weeks ago. It's a sort of Bourne thing but from the point of view of this woman who happens to cross the path of our fugitive spy/assassin. There's funny and danger in it. But it definitely is a short story. Well, at over 10k words, it may end up being a novella. Either way, though.
Have an excerpt:
[Miles is the assassin hiding in Delanie's hotel room in Italy. She just had a conversation with one of the special agents leading the search for Miles. Now, she's not sure if Miles was ever telling her the truth.]
Delanie backed away, but not before he grabbed onto her arm and put the weapon in her hand. “The safety is off,” he said as he stepped away from her with his hands raised. “I may be some form of a monster, I admit that. But I am not the monster that he described. If you believe him, if you think that’s what I am, then shoot. You can keep me from running, and they’ll come when they hear the gunshot. You won’t even have to scream."
Miles stood several feet away from her. He faced her head on, his hands raised. Delanie stood in shock, holding the weapon limply in her hand. She looked at Miles, then at the gun. “This is a glock nine millimeter. The magazine holds fifteen rounds.”
“Seventeen.”
Delanie’s large eyes met his, which seemed pleasantly surprised. “Seventeen,” she corrected herself.
“Do you know what to do with it?” Miles asked.
Delanie automatically held up the weapon, and cupped her left hand over the right, and the rest of the grip. Miles twitched a finger at her. “Choke up a little on the grip, make it level with your line of sight. Good.”
It didn’t seem to faze him at all that a lethal weapon was being pointed at his head. Delanie was certainly being affected by it. Her hands weren’t shaking, but it felt as if the rest of her body was. She stared at Miles over the top of the gun. “What’s your real full name?”
“Miles Benjamin Keep.”
“How old are you?”
“Thirty-five.”
“What are your parents’ names?”
“Michael and Tish Keep.”
“Where did you grow up?”
“My dad was in the military, so we moved around a lot. I went to three high schools.”
Delanie kept the weapon up and pointed directly at him as she fired off question after question. The frustrating bit was that he was firing off answers just as fast.
“Why did you pick me when you came into the hotel?”
Miles paused and thought for a moment on that one. He took a deep breath before beginning his explanation. “Women tend to listen a little better than men; they are more subtle, and generally, a woman would be more willing to help someone in my situation than a man. I could also tell that you were American from the fact that you were staring at a newspaper that was printed in Italian and not reading it. And you were alone. I figured that from the lack of wedding band or engagement ring on your left hand. I also doubted very much that any respectful boyfriend of yours would let someone who looks like you wander around Italy on her own. It was that, and you were dressed up, your hair was done; you were waiting for someone, and it was very unlikely that you would put that much effort into your appearance just to have lunch with an old girlfriend - “
“Don’t try and flatter me. That’s the oldest trick in the book.”
“I wasn’t. I’m only telling you what my thought process was that led to our meeting downstairs. Lastly, I concluded very quickly that you are intelligent.”
Delanie’s eyebrows raised into her hairline.
“The marks on either side of the bridge of your nose,” Miles indicated. “Those are generally from wearing glasses. You weren’t wearing any at the time, so either you prefer walking around blind in order to save your appearance, or you only need glasses when you read. The marks come from a lot of use, which said to me that you tend to read a lot.” Miles lowered his hands and smiled in spite of the gun still pointed at him. “I only questioned that last conclusion when I noticed the copy of Fifty Shades of Grey in your purse. But, the bookmark was still close to the beginning of the novel.”
Miles rattled off his answer, hardly taking time to breathe in between sentences. Delanie touched the side of her nose and felt the little divot where her reading glasses usually sat. She kept them in her purse as well. As for the book, she rolled her eyes and felt the blush come up to her neck. “For the record, a friend of mine lent that book to me for something to read on the plane. I had a hard time getting into it.” Delanie lowered the gun. “I don’t want to shoot you.”
“You have no idea how happy that makes me on both counts.” Miles approached her. She set the gun in his hand without being asked.
----
Good: I remember when I reorganized the timeline for Warped thinking how horribly overwhelming it all was, and how much work I'd have to put into it in order to overhaul it like that. However, when I pulled the timeline out today, it seemed tackleable. My goal is to condense the first few chapters even more so than I have done in the past in order to get to the meat of the story faster. And that is the biggest problem, the beginning chapters. Not overwhelming. I just need a flamethrower.
BAD!: SIDETRACKED! Okay, so there's been this story idea in my head. I've had it for, maybe the past three months or so, maybe less. It was inspired by my listening to Imagine Dragons and Jeremy Renner. Not listening to Jeremy Renner, like he's a voice in my head, but just, you know Jeremy Renner as a whole. I know, I wish I was kidding, but that's 100% true.
It's not science fiction or fantasy. It's a realistic story about an overweight girl in her late twenties, maybe early thirties. Yes, sounds familiar, I know. But the kicker is that she goes through life with the most cynical and sarcastic inner monologue. She's a school teacher and has been life long friends with one of the school science teachers, (Maybe math, I haven't decided.) thus enters Renner into the scenario. It's not really him that I'm writing, he's just the person I pictured when thinking of this character. Anyway, these two are so very tight, they're like Will & Grace, only they're both straight. They've lived in the same town forever, and they were in school together forever. They're just tighter than stretched duct tape. And, overweight girl totally enjoys him because he's kind of screwed up outside of teaching, and he is cynical and sarcastic right with her.
The plot is basically her watching him change into actual nice guy material, which motivates her, in a backwards and cranky way, to try and conquer her own demons. He starts dating again, and she watches it. There are crazy and embarrassing scenes, and so on and so forth. And the kicker is that at the end, our girl does not get the guy. This is realism here, folks. All of this stuff about happy fat couples, The Fat Bachelor, or a skinny girl trapped inside a fat girl's body (That concept made my head burst into flames a little bit.) is complete bull. The fat white girl is rarely pursued by anybody. I do not kid. Of course, I speak from my own experience and no one else's, but I'm pretty damned experienced.
The reason that this whole idea is bad though is because, while I'm trying to work on what is most likely a much more promising project right now, my brain comes up with more ideas for this story. It happened, just now.
Good: I usually stop writing during this season, this time of year. I get depressed and not motivated at all. Somehow, though, I have been writing all through this winter, and most of 2012.
Bad: Most of what I wrote in 2012 was FAN FICTION!
Good: But because of the fan fiction writing, and whatever else I wrote, I have gained a better understanding of editing and keeping pace in my writing. The experience has helped me feel confident now about condensing the chapters in Warped as discussed above. I don't get thoroughly attached to something I write and have a hard time editing it anymore. It's kind of thrilling when you end up highlighting a pointless paragraph of narrative or dialogue and just backspace it into oblivion! No paragraph is too good for me to delete! Unless, you know, it's ridiculously good.
----
What's more is that I recently watched Men in Black 3 for the first time, and I am so in love with time travel. It actually figures that the first readable novel I complete and polish up has time travel in it. MIB3 uses it as a major factor in an excellent plot. The second movie wasn't a lot to shout about, but I really enjoyed this third one. It was really fun and imaginative. And it also brought me back to the truth: that I absolutely have to get this book finished, even if it draws blood from my hair tearing.
Although... Renner is definitely fun to picture while I'm writing...