Oct 09 2008

Some observations and notes from tonight’s writing session:

• Changed the name of the horrible teacher from Mary Helene to Ms. Marellen. If you went to elementary school with me, you will nod at this and say, Good call, Hillary.
• Chapter 2 was way more awesome than I remember writing. I think I changed about 2 words in the whole thing. Done and done.
• The original Chapter 3 must have been eaten by gremlins. I cannot find it anywhere. I decided to just rewrite it as there were a few things that I had planned to change anyway. I am not in love with how it turned out, but I don’t hate it either so I think we are in good shape.
• I have got nothing when it comes to giving characters last names. I finally resorted to using this page of the most common last names. My hope is that by the end of the book I will be inspired and come up with better ones.
• I am either a much better writer than I thought or I am incredibly lucky. I wrote Chapter 2 a very long time ago and yet all these parts in Chapter 2 parallel these other parts that happen way later. It’s like I am doing foreshadowing which is very impressive because it was totally unintentional and I have no idea what I am doing.
• The downside to this is that I left Chapter 2 feeling like I was the world’s greatest writer and then I added all this foreshadowing to the new Chapter 3 and I think it might be too much. I’m too tired to be objective now but I may need to revisit it.
• I am starting to wonder if I should flip chapters 1 and 2. I just like Chapter 2 better for some reason but that may just be because I have had to re-write Chapter 1 so many times I have come to hate it. Chapter 2 is also a bit funnier but I think that is because I was not writing it under duress like Chapter 1.
• It is really helpful doing these all in a row. I have been working on this book piecemeal for so long, especially these first few chapters many of which I first drafted 4+ years ago and skipped last year during NaNoWriMo that its really nice to finally read the book in order and to see how things fit together. Sometimes it fits together awesome and I feel like a god. Other times I discover that I have re-explained the same thing 5 times or changed a character’s gender since the last chapter. It’s a daily struggle. 
• I should go to bed.

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