Thursday, March 01, 2007

Back From Tech-hell

At least, I think so. I think I have my yahoo problem straightened out. I don't know. I guess I'll see soon enough.

Thank God it's March! I am soooo tired of winter right now (and what the hell is with this wind??? When did I move to Chicago?), so tired of cold and ice-storms, and I am absolutely sick of being inside. I'm going stir-crazy because it's too lousy out to take the kids to the park, or whatever. Of course, my daughter goes out with her friends, but my son's not quite ready for that yet. Come on, warm weather, and get here already. (of course, come August, I'll be griping about the heat, but hey- I live in Jersey and everybody knows Jersey's just one big swamp. Why my Irish forebears decided to stay here is beyond me. They must've arrived in spring or fall.)

But I digress.

Well, it's been two weeks (Ok, eleven days, but close enough, right?) since I finished up that draft. I've rewritten the first chapter, but now I think I need to make it the second chapter instead. Ideas are flowing again (allelujah!) and some seem like they might work real well, but we'll see how it translates on paper.

I know Hugh needs to be darker, which leads me to believe I've started the story in not-quite-the-right place. Hmm... I hate when that happens. Trust me, you don't always know where the beginning actually is. Sometimes it isn't until three chapters in... ugh... That's when you end up with the info dump in the first 50 pages and all of those "Well, as you know, Bob" scenes leap to life. I hate them and avoid them because everybody hates them. Info dumps suck and they draw a reader right out of the story. Never a good thing.

So now I have to write a new first chapter and hope I've got it in the right place. I think it will give a little insight into how Hugh has changed and make him sympathetic as well. I've already fleshed out Miranda's beginning, so her state of mind will be clear, and it will be easy to see why this man and woman fit together so perfectly, and yet are so totally wrong for one another.

I also have to strengthen the subplot regarding Sally, who plays a major role in shaping Hugh and Miranda. There is also a subplot between Miranda and her mother that is good, but needs a bit more work to make it more complex. Ah, the relationship one has with one's mother is never simple, is it?

So, we'll see how the new first chapter reshapes the rest of the book. Hopefully it will work, but if not, back to the drawing board and see where it went wrong. I don't outline, but I do jot down plot points and skeleton scenes that I want to go into the book, so that will make it easier. There are usually a couple of sensible options if A or B doesn't quite work out. I don't know if this is how anyone else works, but it seems to be ok for me, so why fix it if it ain't broke?

4 comments:

Sarah said...

The wind must be blowing from Kansas all the way to New Jersey. It sucks here too. Yesterday it was 74 degrees today it's like 45 degrees.

Kim said...

It's been crazy here - it's 54 now (8:46 EST), but raining like mad. It's supposed to get sunny later, but the temp's going to drop. What's that all about!

Stay safe from any tornadoes!


I've had to do my word ver 4 times before Blogger accepted it and I KNOW it was right each time. Argh!

My last one was hzoopelf

Sarah said...

We'll try but you never know sometimes. The last time it got weird like this we spent the summer sitting in the hallway(we didn't have a basement then). Every time we had a thunderstorm it turned into a tornado warning. That was about 2 years ago. Hopefully this summer won't be like that. My 3 won't enjoy having to spend so much time in the basement when they could be outside playing.

Mine is upjwhoa

Kim said...

I can't imagine how nervewracking that must be - we actually had a tornado warning here (in NJ, of all places) about a month or so ago, when we had a some weird warm weather. We NEVER get tornadoes (or if we do, they're like a teeny gust of wind), and it was the longest hour ever!

Hopefully things will calm down soon. I'm soooo ready for spring!