Sometimes I wonder what the heck I’m doing.
THE DAY
Woke up at 4:30, fretting about plot details, and also because I’d started to cough. At the tail end of this plague, though (I hope). Finally rolled out of bed at 6:15 after a little more of a doze and thought through the day. Handyman coming at 9 to work on installing doors and I’d called the pool where I usually swim to get their weekend times. So I was planning around that, and I’d also suggested to the husband that we see a movie. Still, I thought that if I applied myself and worked at it, I’d for sure get through the, oh, three pages I had before reaching the end of this section.
Well, things went only okay. I sort of got a start, but then there were details to work out about other home-related things. This is the problem when the husband’s home: I want to spend time with him, but my work goes so much better when he’s not around. But only sort of. There are many times when we can get into a nice rhythmn: both of us working in the same room, which is our version of parallel play. Today wasn’t one of those days. By the time I packed up to leave for the pool, I’d written a whopping 300-some odd words.
Swam. Life always looks better after a good swim. (I also discovered that I’d been quoted the wrong times and so I could have come between 11-3, instead of the 9-1 I’d been told. Whatever. I’m only glad I got there at 11:30. Think how pissed I’d have been if I’d shown up at 10.) Did some errands about town and then though, oh, wait, I have a book to pick up at the library.
Bopped by the library. Had an interesting chat with a librarian about indie publishing. Got my book. So then I’m heading back to the car. I’m in the parking lot, broad daylight.
Let’s just call what happens next my WTF moment of the day:
Now, I know the lot is Homeless Person Grand Central; there’s a guy who lives in this blasted out burgundy van that must still run because he moves it from spot to spot every day or so.) I pop the door and am about to get in when I turn and there’s this black guy who’s followed me to the car and he says, “‘Scuse me, ma’am, but I got to ask: are you married?”
Me: lock the car door and then take several, very fast and very long steps toward him, while shouting (and believe me, I have a very big voice; years of singing): “Back up, back up, back up now!” (No, I’m not suicidal. But I did not want to be stuck between two parked cars where no one could see me and I sure didn’t want him to push me into my car.)
He looks surprised and he does back up; there’s nothing like doing the unexpected and coming *at* someone. Then he says, “I’m sorry. I just had to know because you look so good in your clothes.”
By now, we’re both visible, and I see the same three reservists in the breezeway that I just passed and so I say, again very loudly, “You need to leave right now, or I *will* start screaming and those guys are there”–who are looking by now–“will come running.”
So he leaves. He apologizes, too. But he leaves.
Yeah. Roll Tide. (This is an in-joke here. The two big rivalries are between U of AL and Auburn. “Roll Tide” is kinda U of A’s battlecry. So we know these two folks who went to Auburn and when someone does something stupid, they look at one another and say, “Roll Tide.”
Finally stumbled back up the mountain at 2:30. They’re still painting the door. I’m still decompressing. I sit down at the computer after getting myself a cup of tea and I’m thinking, “No way I’ll be able to write.”
But the thing is: I really wanted to finish this stupid section. I wanted to get there so bad, I could taste it.
So I started working. Turned on the radio to the SEC Championship game but so low I couldn’t really hear, which is fine. Noise is distracting. I usually wear earphones when I work, even when I’m alone. The handymen eventually finish and leave; the husband comes home. I just kept working. We’d planned on seeing a movie this evening–first time out to a movie since MI:5.
Well, I got it done with a half hour to spare. Ended up with about 10 new pages–and this time, I’m not going back.
But, boy, have I just made things way more complicated for myself.
WRITING OUT LOUD
GHOST IN THE MACHINE
Day 1: 4326
Day 2: 2085
Day 3: 3011
Day 4: 2652
Day 5: 3210
Day 6: 3450
Blog Post: 1208
***
Maybe I like making cakes for a reason. Except I suck at layer cakes. Well, not really, but they’re not my favorite. Getting the cake to look picture perfect is much more difficult than with/for a bundt. Or maybe I resent the time they take. I don’t know.
Books are different. I build them the way you’d layer a cake, one idea on top of another slotted between two more. Like I’ll get this idea to fold another ingredient into a book’s mix and before you know it, I start layering in details and back story and, in general, making things way more complicated for myself. On the other hand, I tend to think that these are the details that go into layering a character or story. But layering sure does take some strange turns, as it has now for this book.
So far, I’m going to trust my gut and go with this. But I’ve also created much more work now, and the question is whether to layer now or do I know enough to pretend that I’ve done it? The latter, I think. I don’t want to avoid the rest of the book.
***
What I’m Watching:
Actually, as I said, I swam (so no TV) and then saw a movie, SPOTLIGHT, which revolves around the Boston Globe reporting team that broke the sex abuse scandal in the Catholic Church back in 2002. It’s an ensemble film, and incredibly well done. Well worth the time.
***
What I’m Reading:
In another few minutes, after I post this and go to bed, I’ll probably give Abandon (Blake Crouch) another chapter and then dive into the Grownup by Gillian Flynn. This isn’t a book but a short story (about 50 pages or so) that appeared in a 2014 anthology, Rogues. I’m half and half about Flynn. I haven’t cared for her books other than Gone Girl, and that one I lost patience with about halfway through. I read it all the way through but started to skim as soon as the wife turned up again because I found the whole scenario so preposterously silly. Still, the woman knows how to write, and she sells more than I do, so I can always learn something.
I’ll give her this: I read the first few pages on my way back to the car–this is before the idiot–and the story starts out great and is so good, I was laughing out loud. If she can keep it up for 50 pages, I’m there.
