Wondering what the heck a Sunday Circle is? Check out Peter M. Ball’s site for more details and for this week’s virtual meet-up!
What am I working on this week? Last week, I managed to pick a story to rework and I’m so psyched about it. It’s a novelette that I had to force myself to finish a number of years ago, and as a result, was totally uninterested in revisiting up until a few weeks ago. Having to pick a story to revise for October, though, made me consider it enough to open the file and take a peek to see if it was really as terrible as I remembered. But it wasn’t! In fact, it was pretty damned awesome–with, of course, lots of room for tightening and improving. Running on that high, this week, I’m going to nail down the voice of one of the alternating POVs, and start the retype-from-scratch to hopefully streamline the edits I know need to be there. (I may also occasionally cheat and pluck at a summary draft of a MG novel that’s trying to infect my brain, but I’ll try to keep it reasonable…)
What’s inspiring me this week? Big Hero 6, FTW! Oh my word, I just saw this for the first time on Wednesday while sick as a dog, and it totally managed to make my day despite it being a terrible day. It’s so thoughtful and sweet and charming and science-y and just–yeah. Loved it. I’m still processing the plotting, but it really struck home the basic plot outline: SOMETHING BREAKS–>Character is Reactive–>ANOTHER BREAK/CHANGE–>Character Becomes Proactive–>BIG BREAK AND DARKNESS–>Realizing one’s weakness/Recognizing that the weakness you have is the same weakness as the villain’s, and realizing that the villain’s way (aka your previous way of thinking) really isn’t the right way–>CLIMAX–>Deep Breath of Relief and Awww. Totally fascinating, and I can’t wait to watch it again with the hubby, because seriously, there are parts of this movie that are going to make him die laughing, and he’s always in need of a good laugh these days.
Also, since I’m on a kid’s movie kick, The Incredibles, which I’ve had to watch about three times this week, since kiddo’s been kind of sick too (fingers crossed that he kind of misses the worst of whatever EVIL CRUD I had earlier in the week) and I’ve been way sick and in need of the Blue Screen Babysitter. That said, it’s a very clever piece of plotting, too, with once again, that very clear plot-structure. Also, my son is now obsessed with Dash and running as fast as he can (BABY! RUN! WATER! Hahahahaha~!! <–Actual quote.)
What am I avoiding this week? Again, not so much avoiding, so much as calculating what I can realistically get done in a week. For now, I’m not going to worry about adding to the novel-edit scene list. The rewriting process takes a lot of mental creativity, and trying to split my limited thinking resources these days just leads to frustration, so I’m going all out on the short story and will pick up the novel edit planning again once the short story editing is at a less demanding phase.
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And that’s it for me! Here’s hoping for a healthier week than the last one. :)
Maggie Slater 