Reconciled

I've got my sights set firmly in the guide now. Nano was a complete failure of its intended purpose, obviously, but it did get me back in there and working.  And last night i did it. I think i closed the last hole. it started with a death that i've always wondered whether i needed... i always knew i would take that death back in an instant if it really didn't serve any purpose as i had been thinking all along.

And then came the last (i think it is the last... i've said it before) Why hole. The swirly mess of madness and questions i can feel myself judging my character's actions on. Why did she do that? Why was that decision made. why why why?

I reconciled both of those parts with one another. Sadly character one has to stay dead, but if i can ever finish this, it means that he'll get to live at all...

NaNoWriMo 2015 and a Gender Swap.

So we're already most of the way into November. I decided at like 5am on the 1st of November hey, wouldn't it be a good idea to do Nanowrimo? Yeah! I love coffee!! Woo-hoo!!

Five in the morning really is a weird time of the day for me.

Anyway, i set up my own parameters for it. because i don't want to write something new. I don't have the time for that. And i have too much unfinished to just blithely run off and fall in love with some young new stranger. Strangers don't interest me anymore.

So i'm working on the Guide. and here's how my word count works.

if i write something new: full word count
if i transcribe something out of a notebook: 3/4 word count (because when it comes down to it, i'm really rewriting most of it anyway. notebook stuff is just outline suggestion-y, especially some of the older things that are dodgy in their usefulness due to developments since their scrawling.
if i search through old typed documents to find stuff to move into new documents: 1/4 word count.

I'm currently at 4,000 words.

which is good. ish. i guess. considering we've all been sick and i still need to work and actually hang out with my children.

Also, in a strange twist, i believe the entire path of the 'verse following the Guide - from Prophet on - has changed course when i decided to gender swap my main character. Daniel as Dani, creating a 2:2 male female ratio, rather than a 3:1.

Dani would still be searching for a sister. I wouldn't want to swap Jo in response. In fact, i don't think i want to swap any other characters. I like a female Prophet. I like Daniel's personality transposed into a girl. Don't change anything but pronouns and the whole arc of stories suddenly feels more female-centric and the role being carried out by this character, i feel, is an entirely new and exciting spin.

I think i've committed to it.

My only worry, actually, is the way it changes the relationship with Spencer, but that's so far down the road, and even his story isn't complete...

And now I'm 31

I have a sort of plan. It involves my youngest daughter's preschool, still three years away. That is absurd. 

So there is a second plan but I am blocked there too, there is so much at stake. 

I am going to write these things. I am going to design this great story, even if only to myself. I have to get it out. It is not eating me, it is eating itself. There is so much I don't know what to do first or next or last. 

A new goal. A chapter a week. Can I do that? And not in among the stuff that is already there to confuse me. A fresh page. A blank sheet for this new and final vision. 

I have laid it out. The wood paneling adds something, don't you think?

It's not much yet, but that's okay. Because that binder is so full and everything has changed. I have to find the truth thread again. Forget about the future. We will get there. 

Parallel

Sometimes I think we pass back and forth between parallel dimensions. Sometimes things change. Okay, maybe it's the matrix. 

Today I stood in my sewing room staring at my serger for four, five minutes remembering. Because two or three days before I threaded it because mom was having trouble getting it to work. Then I tested it. 

I know I tested it. The fabric with the test seam was still connected. 

But the only machine cord plugged in on the table today is for my old sewing machine. A little digging and I finally found the cord in a bag, tied up still in the fancy Velcro from the repair place under the table. 

BUT I TESTED IT. 

Another instance of the same sort would be that one and only delivery run in the two years that I owned Buster, the red VW golf, the back doors EVER opened. Just that once. Never again. Not even later that same night. 

Watching Jupiter Ascending because The Mary Sue says it's the best bad movie. Lego head it wolfish rescuing a gril queen. I need to finish my stories before they've all already been told. 

iPhone

So I finally upgraded to the smart phone era and have found that in bed at night before I go to sleep I like to work on the novels.  I have found though something I knew but didn't entirely comprehend. 

In the catastrophic failure that turned my laptop from a useful piece of technology into a pile of crap that freezes when you dare to watch a video I lost all the story information that had been in scrivener. There were a lot of bits and pieces I had written in there and they are gone now. They were never put on paper first. 

Redo. Redo. Redo.