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lyornGwydion and I had the party on Sunday, which was, as usual, an extended breakfast/brunch with too many people for the place (especially as the kids wanted one room to themselves, so the adults had to crowd in the living room and the kitchen) and heaps of food. It was fun, and the usual suspects stayed past 6 p.m. and helped me move every single item of furniture in the living room to make place for the new sofas. We discovered lots of discarded cat toys, and dust bunnies massive enough to stampede and cause widespread destruction.
Monday we were playing Werewolf in the evening, and I was very, very tired, had trouble to concentrate, and was extremely miffed, as some moron at work had entered an incomplete list of files for a delivery on Thursday, discovered it late in the afternoon on Monday, three guesses who got to fix their mess before Tuesday morning. So I logged in from home at midnight, did everything in record time, only do discover at half past one that some e-mail I hadn't taken the time to read told me to take my time, they had discovered more problems and it would be fine if everything was fixed by Wednesday morning. Have I mentioned that my job is insane?
Tuesday at 9 am sharp the new sofas arrived and looked very strange in the old room. I was dead tired the whole day, which was not made better by the need to dismantle everything on my desk at work so it could be moved. More rabid dust bunnies, and me in my good clothes. I haven't done that much moving stuff in years, and I hope I won't again. With no computers on my desk, I could at least go home early and catch up on sleep before singing lessons and going to the gym (which was OK.)
Wednesday was a normal day at work, and choir practise in the evening, which was fun. Afterwards I invited Ceridwen over and we had hot cocoa. The weather was raining if it wasn't snowing, as it had been all week, so I drove her home at midnight.
Thursday I had an appointment at the gym to get the settings for the new machines. The trainer was half an hour late, but we still managed to get it done and I did two rounds, went home, showered, then went over to Snow to watch SJA. After that, I tried to work on the story I hope to finish sometime this year, but chapter eight refused to do what I wanted it to.
Today I have sore muscles, but the week was calming down a little and I noticed how out of breath I was. Talked to Snow a lot, about the recalcitrant chapter eight, and found out that it cannot do what I want it to do because I do not know what I want it to do.
I notice pattern and structure very strongly, and dislike having my own writing "out of pace". The story I'm working on is episodic, ten or twelve chapters (not sure yet) over the course of about one-and-a-half years. Every chapter is about 1500 words and happens in one place, over a short period of time, and focused on one character, but contains flashbacks and parallels to the character's history. At the end of every chapter, the character is in the same literal place where they started, but has moved a lot in a metaphorical sense. There is a lot of world building, but it's low key -- this is not a travelogue. The story is (I guess -- it might still surprise me) about running away and running towards. Chapter eight takes the character back to the first place she ran away to (not "towards") in another life, but I get side-tracked again and again with getting her there, and creating scenery. The movement that should be internal insists on being external. Which does not work for the story and does not work for the character, who is rather introspective. And after thinking about it loudly for hours, which Snow patiently listening to my rambling, I think the problem is that I do not know what I want her to discover in that place.
Now I only need to put that diagnosis to good use and make that damned chapter eight work.
Monday we were playing Werewolf in the evening, and I was very, very tired, had trouble to concentrate, and was extremely miffed, as some moron at work had entered an incomplete list of files for a delivery on Thursday, discovered it late in the afternoon on Monday, three guesses who got to fix their mess before Tuesday morning. So I logged in from home at midnight, did everything in record time, only do discover at half past one that some e-mail I hadn't taken the time to read told me to take my time, they had discovered more problems and it would be fine if everything was fixed by Wednesday morning. Have I mentioned that my job is insane?
Tuesday at 9 am sharp the new sofas arrived and looked very strange in the old room. I was dead tired the whole day, which was not made better by the need to dismantle everything on my desk at work so it could be moved. More rabid dust bunnies, and me in my good clothes. I haven't done that much moving stuff in years, and I hope I won't again. With no computers on my desk, I could at least go home early and catch up on sleep before singing lessons and going to the gym (which was OK.)
Wednesday was a normal day at work, and choir practise in the evening, which was fun. Afterwards I invited Ceridwen over and we had hot cocoa. The weather was raining if it wasn't snowing, as it had been all week, so I drove her home at midnight.
Thursday I had an appointment at the gym to get the settings for the new machines. The trainer was half an hour late, but we still managed to get it done and I did two rounds, went home, showered, then went over to Snow to watch SJA. After that, I tried to work on the story I hope to finish sometime this year, but chapter eight refused to do what I wanted it to.
Today I have sore muscles, but the week was calming down a little and I noticed how out of breath I was. Talked to Snow a lot, about the recalcitrant chapter eight, and found out that it cannot do what I want it to do because I do not know what I want it to do.
I notice pattern and structure very strongly, and dislike having my own writing "out of pace". The story I'm working on is episodic, ten or twelve chapters (not sure yet) over the course of about one-and-a-half years. Every chapter is about 1500 words and happens in one place, over a short period of time, and focused on one character, but contains flashbacks and parallels to the character's history. At the end of every chapter, the character is in the same literal place where they started, but has moved a lot in a metaphorical sense. There is a lot of world building, but it's low key -- this is not a travelogue. The story is (I guess -- it might still surprise me) about running away and running towards. Chapter eight takes the character back to the first place she ran away to (not "towards") in another life, but I get side-tracked again and again with getting her there, and creating scenery. The movement that should be internal insists on being external. Which does not work for the story and does not work for the character, who is rather introspective. And after thinking about it loudly for hours, which Snow patiently listening to my rambling, I think the problem is that I do not know what I want her to discover in that place.
Now I only need to put that diagnosis to good use and make that damned chapter eight work.
