The grrr and the arghh

Okay, that little plan where I finish off the novel in November? Yeah, that ain't a'happenin'. Out of a planned six remaining chapters, I've completed two whole squawking paragraphs. Actually, make that two boring paragraphs. It's not for lack of effort—I've spent a good amount of time at work outlining what needs to happen and when, and even more time staring dark-eyed at the screen, wondering which internal organs I need to sacrifice to make words materialize. But the novel has turned into a long slog into slow abject tooth-extraction-reminiscent blah at this point.

Part of the problem is that I screwed up the overall structure somewhat, and am only now beginning to realize it. The story has plenty of action and midway-poster-worthy thrills, and I like to think that I've spaced them out well, but I left a long lull between the big scene in chapter 10 and the one I'm building toward at the end. Now, granted, that gives me a long time to build tension before the climax, which is a good thing (I'm thinking of Part IV of Watership Down). But I'm still looking at a few chapters that are awfully talky and not especially fun to write, especially since I'm not entirely sure how certain aspects of the conversations within are going to play out.

I just need to set my sights on the bits I'm looking forward to. Like the very end of this chapter, for instance, when something finally clicks in Tala's head, and she marches over to Marla's kitchen and asks her....

(By the way, my current music? Totally addictive, and available for free download, if you haven't heard it already.)

I swear, my voice just dropped half an octave

chris_walsh has heard me say on occasion that puberty kicked in for me at the moment of Leia's brass bikini. (I'm sure more than a few of you can empathize.) So I'm assuming this is why he just sent me to this shot of Carrie Fisher and her stunt double enjoying a between-shots nap on set:



Oh, heaven have mercy on my soul. I'm, um, going to need a quiet moment or two, if you'll excuse me....