So I was totally in bed last night, all tucked in and super comfy, when I realized I hadn’t updated yesterday’s progress. Oops! Ah well, life moves on, so I’ll recap a little for both yesterday and today.
Yesterday was delightful for a very specific reason: I started my Christmas cello lessons! The hubby and I have been talking for years (literally, years) about taking cello lessons at some point, but we’ve never gotten around to it. So this year for XMas, my folks got me (and by proxy, him too!) three months of cello lessons with a local teacher. It’s awesome. I’ve been so out of the loop musically, that it does feel like starting over from complete scratch–even holding the bow tires out the hand faster than I expected–but I’m pumped to be jumping into something new. Music lessons are a great reminder, too, about what it means to be a beginner. You start off with absolute, seemingly ridiculous basics (how do I take out the end-pin? Where are my fingers supposed to go on the neck? Am I holding this thing right?), and it’s mainly a matter of practice and dedication. One step follows another, progress is made with time and effort, but you really can’t speed up or jump over the beginning stages. You have to progress one step at a time.
Which is actually pretty hard for me. It’s something I’ve come to recognize this year specifically in the pressure I often put on myself. It isn’t new: when I was a toddler, I kept trying to run. I didn’t know how to walk, but I didn’t want to go slow: I wanted to run! Now! It actually kept me from learning to walk quite as soon as I might have if I’d been more patient. It was only when my folks unwittingly set me at the bottom of a pretty steep hill on a day out and about that I managed to run all the way to the top without stopping, and from there–backwards–I learned how to walk at a slower speed. I’m still like that–wanting to jump and swim and race in my daily life and in my career a lot faster than is realistic (or even good for me) at this stage. I often have to remind myself to slow down. It’s not a race. It’s not who gets there first. It’s taking the process one step at a time, so I don’t have to go back and re-learn things I would have picked up earlier if I’d only been calm enough to receive it.
That said, I’m thrilled to pieces to announce that I have–at long, long last–finally finished a rough draft of my own first original novel!
That’s right! The first ever! It still doesn’t quite feel real, but there’s something special about typing “The End” on that last page. Gosh! *Phew!* It clocked in a little longer than I’d been hoping for (about 97,000 over my estimated 95,000), and boy oh boy will it need work, but for now, I’m just gonna party like it’s 1999, and worry about that a few months from now when I dare to pick it up again. I’m just thrilled to get this one out of my head for once. HOORAY!
WRITING PROJECT: In a world where wars are waged in shadow and the separation between man and machine is shrinking by the day, a war-droid wielding cyborg-girl begins a secret battle against those who would control her and destroy the only chance of a future she’s ever had.
Working Title: Shadow Games: Book 1 of the Shadow Engines duology
Added Words: 3660 (Day 7 & 8)
Total Words (to date): ~97,400
Happening Today in the World of Fiction!: Finished! It’s finished! Ascendancy completed! Revenge enacted! Doom wrought! And a little seed of hope planted. And we get to meet a sassy clone. :D
Notes: It’s crazy that this thing is done. It’s only the first part of the longer story, but it’s the main part of the story I’ve wanted to tell for almost a decade now. Having cleared the fan-fiction novel out of my brain in September, and now getting THIS one out of my head (which has been knocking around just as long) is nothing short of a miracle. I never thought I’d be able to do it. But I did! Ho-ho! Go me!
EDITING PROJECT: Ghosts and legends and Bluebeard, oh my! The cold Maine coastline! Haunted grounds! Ribbons and bitter, ghostly wives! Dueling secrets! True love? Perhaps!
Current Editing Project: Nobody Here But Us Monsters
Accomplished in Edits: (Day 7) Got started on the next rewrite scene (just two left!), and I’m still loving this POV switch. It gives me so much more flexibility to explore both BB and the New Wife’s personalities separate from each other, without needing to always filter those views through each other’s eyes. Way, way, way, WAY more useful. And much more interesting to write! It’s getting close to that 5k marker, so I suspect there’ll be some trimming on the far end of this, but for now, onward and upward!
Hooray for me! I think I’ll eat out tonight. Maybe Italian…Mmmm, I could go for pasta… :D
Maggie Slater 