In other news, my novel project (2 days down, 26 to go) has not gone off the rails yet. Amazing! I was babysitting last night, and the parents were out much later than usual. This was actually pretty great, since I got paid to sit and write at their kitchen table. Not a bad gig. Although there were moments when I was pulling my hair out (figuratively, thankfully), I had to admit that this felt a lot better than what I usually do while waiting for these parents to return home - watch awesomely bad TV, play solitaire on my phone, aimlessly texting people for no apparent reason. I realized pretty quickly that I haven't sat down to write 7 pages since college, and I didn't have a full time job then. The feelings of frustration and blank stares at the computer screen came back like a charm, though - it's like riding a bike.
But! I reached my page quota. And the wheels have started turning, I think. I must be honest, not a lot of it is use-able yet. So much of what I wrote last night was my version of thinking out loud: starting a paragraph with "So, why is this character interesting?" or "How can I calm my misgivings about this turn in the plot?" and sometimes "I absolutely need to cut this, because it's stupid and makes no sense." Sometimes, it helps to have a physical log of these things. Anyway, a lot of headway was made last night. I've had the idea for this novel for about two and a half years now, but could never get anywhere with it. Last night, I finally figured out why. I changed a lot of things, restructured, and added some new details, so now I think it might actually have a future as something. Incredibly liberating, and the best I've felt about my writing in ages.
I'll post a snippet of the new stuff when I can, somewhere in between my treks across the frozen Manhattan tundra.
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