Krissie just posted about her own revision turmoil.  Her story parallels mine, except she is convinced of her own vision (as she should be) and I keep second-guessing mine.  Well, she’s Anne Stuart, Drama Queen and Romance Legend; I’m the slut peasant in the kitchen, thinking about bok choy and Tamari with a side of strawberry ice cream.  Still, it’s heartening to know she’s gung ho, and her book is really good, so now I’m feeling better about mine.  

Conclusion: Friends are important in a writing career.  Krissie is essential.

This book is going to be the death of me.  

Okay, that’s probably just me whining.  But it’s making me think about story in different ways than I have before and making me second guess myself.  I think that’s good, but it’s disconcerting.

So this weekend I did something very Bob-like: I set up a table for the major action events, divided by acts, and then analyzed all of them for character arcs and relationship arcs.  The tables looked like this:

My electricity went out last week.  Aside from my knee-jerk “Did I pay. the bill?” panic (I was a broke single mother for a long time), I knew I’d be fine. It’s plenty warm here and I have battery powered lanterns stashed all over the house.  My main regrets were not having the laptop and the iPad fully charged and not being able to make quesadillas which I’d prepped all the stuff for.  

Then the power came back on, and for hours after that, every time I thought about electricity, I wriggled all over with happiness because I had some.  Sometimes we just need to be reminded how happy we are.

What made you happy this week?

Today is World Honeybee Day, which is important because if the hives collapse, civilization doing the same will not be far behind.  It’s also Homeless Animal Day, so adopt one.  Or two.  Two is better so they can talk to each other while you’re at work or the grocery.  (The puppy to the right is Claudia, Pat Gaffney’s newest boss.) So be kind to our four-legged and winged friends today, please.  (Actually, every day.) 

A beat is a unit of conflict.

Actually, there are many definitions of “beats” in writing fiction, but for the purposes of this series, beats are a unit of conflict, analgous to the acts in a story. They’re a tool for finding out what’s wrong with a scene, for strengthening a scene, but probably not for writing one. If you’ve written a scene you think is great, don’t bother with beats. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. But if a scene isn’t working, then looking for beats is an excellent way to tighten and focus it.

A while back (a long while back), I did a series of writing posts on another blog that I called Writing/Romance.  I took that blog offline for admin reasons, and an Argher just asked for the conflict box post back, so I think what I’m going to do is keep the old blog defunct and just do a. Writing/Romance category here.   So the Conflict Box post is back up here.

Let me know what other stuff you want me to move front and center in the reposting job; eventually everything but the old Cherry. Saturdays and Happiness Sundays and general admin posts will go back up, but there are hundreds of the suckers and it’s taking me awhile.

I’m reading Healthy Pasta and watching Leverage episodes to get back into team mode for Nita.  And also because I wanted to watch Leverage.  The writing in that show is so, so good.  Healthy Pasta isn’t quite as riveting but did inspire me to order odd pasta shapes from Amazon.  

So what inspiring reading did you do this week?

It’s the middle of August.  How did that happen?  One good thing about August is that nothing happens in publishing then, so the fact that I’m still slashing at Nita is not being noticed in NYC.  That’s why it’s also a good idea if I am finished slashing at Nita in September.  Also, I’m so sick of this book, I could spit.  Until I start reading it again.  Then I love it, even if it is screwed up.  Sigh.  

I also shaved Veronica and Mona this week.  I think the proper term is “clipped,” but since I’m terrible at it, we’re going with shaved.  Veronica is delighted, scampering around like a puppy.  Mona was temporarily upset–“Again?”–but she’s basically a happy puppy so she’s forgotten the indignity and is also leaping about gaily now.  Milton is growing out his Krissie-clip and looks much less chewed.  We’re good here.

So what did you work on this week?