Anyone who follows Dean Wesley Smith's blog will recognize the format below. I have a lot of respect for the man. I also see how his style of blogging would help both the writer to stay focused and the readers to find more easily the information they look for.
Life in General...
I feel better this morning. I ran a low-grade fever last night. No fever today but still chilling randomly. That alone indicates something wrong. I don't get cold. When I went to bed last night (just after 8 PM) my legs started jerking. They usually do when I go to bed (I have restless leg syndrome and at least one ruptured disc) but this time the kicking and spasming was intense and frequent enough that I doubted I'd ever be able to sleep. Both legs ached just like a rotten tooth. After an hour, I took ibuprofen (max dose). My legs slowed down. They almost stopped jerking, but I wasn't going to gripe about the occasional kick. Since the ibuprofen worked, this made me wonder whether in the past my restless leg meds helped or maybe the anti-inflamatories did instead. Oh well, I'll let the doctor know.
Saturday, Yancy Caruthers and I attended a couple of book signings at the Joplin Public Library in Joplin, Missouri, and at the VFW (sponsored by Bob Wolfe at Always Buying Books) also in Joplin. I was there, not as a writer, but as Yancy's cover designer for Northwest of Eden. We got to meet a lot of nice people: nurses and veterans and painters and other novelists. The folks from Classic Rock 99.1 FM were super friendly and asked great questions. Of course, Yancy fielded all of those. My job was to sit there and look all important and occasionally rattle sentences with the word Photoshop in them.
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| Yancy is the well-mannered one shaking hands with a fellow nurse. I'm the one in the t-shirt. |
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| Cover for Northwest of Eden. |
The Writing and Current Projects....
Yesterday, I squeezed out a 5-minute sprint of editing. I ended up gaining 17 words. (It was exhausting in a nearly conscious sort of way.) I certainly ain't bragging. Maybe blame lies upon my impending fever that evening, but I was not happy with the words I saw. In several places, the writing stumbled all over itself.
I failed to push, pummel, or threaten any progress from the outline.
Late last night, however, I think I figured out my wrong turn. It's the protagonist's story goal. I liked his original goal, but that one was the avoidance of a situation, rather than something more active and, well, goal-oriented. Avoidance is perfectly acceptable in fiction but a little harder for the reader to get behind.
I thought: Having so much problem with motivation, I might be making the story building too complicated with a character who wants to avoid something. Maybe in this case it is the writing equivalent of proving a negative.
So, I gave him another goal, a positive one this time.
Then, yesterday, I realized in mid-sprint (the 2.5-minute mark) that while his goal was unique, it didn't have much in the way of personal stakes. That's a deal breaker. So, I am going back to the original goal. That is where I am starting this morning.
Progress for Oct 4, 2015....
Fiction = 17 words
