Larger than Life

Well. Yesterday I started chapter 15, and soon realized it was all wrong. So was ch 17. Neither are appropriate now given the changes that I have made -- conversations rehash issues already discussed, attitudes are wrong, and there is a now major inconsistency in the actions as a result of changes upstream. What to do? I had no idea. At all. Every time I tried to engage with the material, my brain switched off.

Then I spent about an hour trying to print up some online postage (mostly because I thought I had an account for it, but couldn't remember the password, or the user name I'd picked, nor had I written it down. Eventually I realized I had not set up an account after all... SIGH... and so set one up.) Then I mailed the package, ate lunch, went back to the chapter... and it was time to go to the Y. Well, maybe exercise would help my brain.

I didn't know what to bring to read. I'm in the middle of Donald Maas's Writing the Breakout Novel, and just was not in the mood to be further depressed by his suggestions of all the things I should be putting into my novel if I want it to be really successful and lack both the word count, wit, and time to incorporate. But...Freya Stark's adventures in Iran didn't appeal either, nor did I want to start reading the Writer's Guide to Fantasy, so I took the Maas book after all.

And it was just what I needed! I had forgotten about making your hero larger than life. I tend to get all tangled up in angst and problems (conflict!), but I saw after reading Maas that it's finally time to drop all that and move forward. As soon as I did, the lights went on and the brain started working again. I had hoped to make some significant progress today but alas... Bear had an allergy attack last night involving his ears after missing his Benadryl on account of throwing up. So I was up for several hours holding him still while the new dose kicked in. (Shaking his ears can lead to an aural hematoma, which he had a couple of years ago, or the ends getting all chewed up when they hit things and spraying/dripping blood everywhere, which he just healed up from a couple of days ago) So I didn't get up until late and had a foggy brain, and people over for Wednesday lunch... Maybe tomorrow.

Pressing On,
Karen