Saturday, October 29, 2011

Vacation!

So I'm still alive. Nothing in real life has slowed down since my last post, and I've been completely absent from my digital life for weeks now. And I miss it.

But, I am about to embark on a holiday. Which is exciting. I don't travel often... in fact, I believe I've crossed the Canadian border twice in my entire life. Yup. I did the family trip to Disney World when I was in grade eight, and I drove into Minneapolis some time in high school to see a concert.

With that in mind, planning a ten-day trip through San Fran, L.A. and Vegas has been a bit of a whirlwind.

And while I am really, really excited to go, there is that part of me that's excited to get back, to settle into some kind of normalcy in my life again. By mid-November all the major trade shows are over, so life at the office is going to slow down, at least until January. I have two knitting projects to complete before Festivus, and other than that I can get back to... writing!

So this is it until I get back... see you in a couple weeks!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Real life.

Real life, it sure gets in the way of digital life, eh? I've been barely more than a ghost on here, fb, twitter, aw, and authonomy for the past couple weeks. First I was knocked over by the first cold of the season, then my mom came out west for a week-long visit here, and now I'm scrambling to get ready for Halloween, another season of teaching knit class, and my ten-day trip through California that starts in... 19 days! Ah!

Which also means I haven't had much time to write. Which sucks, because I hate putting down the first draft once I get rolling. Dang. 

What I have been able to get done with this first draft in the past couple weeks is... interesting. I think I was on about chapter eight or nine, when I realized that I needed to make a major change to the characters. Essentially, I had two female characters that were so similar to each other (both happy little friends of the protagonist) that I knew I could condense them into one character to move the plot forward faster. Which seemed like a great idea, until I held the idea up to my character grid and saw that I would be left with only two female characters and about eight male characters. Bit of an imbalance that I wouldn't be happy with.

So I brainstormed another solution. I can cut one of the men (who I already had some issues with in terms of character development) and use one of those two females in his place. It changes her essential purpose completely, yet still leaves her character intact. Instead of being a happy little friend, she's now a happy little friend with a seriously evil ulterior motive. Which makes her way, way more interesting and solves my initial problem. I'm happy with the idea.

Good thing I can at least brainstorm while ill / visiting with mom.

Normally, I'd just push forward with the story from here and worry about reworking those characters in the first edit. This time I think I'll go back and change it (rough and dirty though the changes may be) before I continue. It's a pretty major change, and I'll feel better about moving on if I just fix it now.

So if I can find some time to get back to writing before California, that's what I'll do...