Building Towards Excitation

Yesterday was busy; today is likely to be a bit of a madhouse.  Yesterday was taxes and medication, along with a little work that I didn’t want to do, but more or less was pushed into doing; today is going to be getting my car tested and shopping with other people.  The only thing that makes today a little bearable is that Doctor Who starts tonight, giving me something else to watch for the next seven weeks.

Oh, there’ll be writing as well.  What else?

I’ve the clock on me this morning, because I’d like to finished this post in another twenty-eight minutes so I can put my vehicle through some emissions testing.  So much fun, because you feel as if you have less and less of you own time due to these other obligations.  You have so many things throughout the day you wonder if you’ll get to the things you want, to be able to engage in the things that are important to you.

I do my best.

I’ve finished the edit on Chapter Three of Replacements, and things are going smoothly.  Last night was a real good edit, because I was seeing things that shouldn’t have been there, and a couple of clumsy passages that made me cringe a little on the inside.  How the hell did I write that and think it was good?  Well, it was a first draft of things that were written for another site, and at best I gave those chapters a good looking over before posting them online.

Its wasn’t a disaster, however.  I’t wasn’t as if I was embarrassed by what I’d written:  it’s that these days I know how to look at something and know it doesn’t look right.  When other writers say, “Get good at your editing skills,” they know of what they speak, because there is so much more going on in these phases than I’d ever imaged before getting serious about my writing.  There were many times in the past when I believed my first drafts were so good that I didn’t need no stinkin’ editing–how wrong is that?    If anything, I can look at something I wrote five, six, ten years ago, and know it’s a bit defective, and that it needs a good rub down.  (You know, a polish?  What were you thinking?  Naughty people.)

Tonight I’ll polish up Chapter Four, then tomorrow I’ll get into writing a new chapter?  What’s that, you say?  New chapter?  Yep.  Figured the story needed it, and I have an interesting idea that I want to put in that shows the developing relationship between my two main characters.  Shouldn’t be more than a couple of thousand words, then I can let it sit, I can do something else for a while, then go back and give it a major edit.

Mean and clean:  that’s how I like my chapters.

At this rate I’ll finish the edit next weekend.  Do I edit something else?  You know, there are a couple of stories that need a good edit, and I should get into them if I’m serious about getting stuff published this year.

Only if it’s ready to go is it ready to go.

Seven thirty to seven fifty-two:

Looks like I can check off blogging for the day.

Angel Behind Me, Witch At My Side

Busy, busy day, though not as busy as I might have been.  Editing, shopping, lunch, more editing, TV, and finally getting my Halloween story set up in Scrivener.  Up at 6:30, down at 11:15.

Not a bad stretch.

TV consisted of sitting in the dark and watching the last Doctor Who episode until Christmas.  We sat in the dark because the Internet said we were suppose to do this, probably to make The Weeping Angels that much more frightening than they already are.

It was a good departure episode, for it was time for the Ponds to leave and make way for a new Companion.  As I like to say, Moffat is Evil–I should make a meme out of that, but I’m too lazy–and he teases you, yes he does.  He loves to play with time, as well, but then, what would you expect from the man who invented Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Whimey Stuff?

After the show, then it was up to get my Halloween story ready.  I’ve through of a basic concept, and my daughter gave me some ideas that I may, or may not, use–some of which I’d love to use–so all I needed was a title, which was driving me nuts.  I finally hit on something, which brought about the response, “No one can pronounce that!”  Not my problamo, dig?  I’m just the writer.  Besides, I know what it says, so I’m not worried.

When dream time came, I was pretty much ready.  I took a nap during the day, so it was probably closer to midnight when I finally fell asleep, but then came the dreams . . . oh, my.  Talk about not so much out there while being out there.

There was a company, and a lot of dancing in a huge space where we were building something.  One of my friends was a female humantaur (looking like a human with four legs; think of a centaur without the horse body) dressed pretty much as I imagine one of the characters in my story will be dressed–and she even had a pointy hat.  There was driving around and visiting towns with friends.  There was my trying to pick out a tie for the owner of the company.  There was a lot of coffee–like, we’re talking, twenty gallon vats.

Oh, and there was a Weeping Angel going around trying to zap people into the past.  I know because I saw it a few times as it followed me around.  I think it was avoiding me, though, because I was with a witch friend, and I was in my witch dress and hat–yeah, I was.

I’m a cute witch, too.  You gotta trust me on this.

After the depressing dreams of the night before, last night was much better, even for all its strangeness.  I don’t know, but there was a frivolity that said, “Don’t take this seriously, just go with the flow.”  I wonder if this has something to do with my Halloween story, which is going to be, well, light and fun.  Not with all the death and revenge and murder I had in my last story.

Naw.  This’ll be fun.  You know it’ll be fun when the first line is, “Hey, Witchbaby!  Come here!”

Now all I have to do is write.