I got a nap this morning, and as I did my children were bathed and dressed and fed.
God’s design (that whole two-parent thing) *so* makes the most sense.
Longer post later. Not much later, but much longer.
As in, This-is-your-warning-don’t-complain-later-I-didn’t-warn-you longer.
Ahhh! There’s something so *fresh* about creating whole new scenes.
Put up another 1500 words tonight. Finished another “pink” section.
~
In case anybody cares, I came up with a new color system before I left Bermuda. It was there I had another “reorganization” that caused me to shuffle around a bunch of my second half and necessitated creating a half a dozen new scenes. Creating place-holders, that is. Scenes that still needed to be written to complete the story properly.
I have the scenes numbered and titled (some with self-amusing or inside-joke sorts of titles) in Excel:
It is exciting to watch the overview change to a solid block of color.
Left to-do (before the whole book is at the same level, and I start the “real” revising/proofreading part):
This might sound like a lot, but that is only 9 out of 29 scenes, which emphasizes I’m 2/3 done. Or caught up, or however you want to say it.
This time I’m only energized.
The last time, you may recall, I choked as I thought I was nearing the end. It just didn’t feel *right.* And it wasn’t right. This time everything seems to fit together ever better as I go along.
It’s a good thing I don’t believe in jinxes, or I wouldn’t dare be so delighted.
What’s on my mind:
Anthologies should never end with a sad story.
Thoughtful, fine. But sad? I beg you, Spare me.
There is enough sorrow in this world.
At least for me.
Or maybe I’ve just noticed that a sense of competency inspires confidence which energizes another cycle through projects.
It began Sunday with being very popular (not something I’ve experienced often), having to leave one music practice early to get late to a call-back invitation.
At the theater I was one of a collection of ladies who “all have already been cast” (one whispered to me– catching me up). I heard each one sing, solo, and was delighted by every voice. It made me feel honored to be one of this group.
Later that evening I had a lively two-hour conversation on a variety of entertaining intellectual and spiritual topics. I felt very clever– with the comfortable sort of self-delight I experience when a song I sing is pleasing to my ear.
Afterward it was much as though the burner had been thoroughly turned on under my pot o’ words. So instead of crashing I revised a high-action chapter and gave it to Jay to read the next day.
He kept commenting on how “violent” it was.
“What’s the big deal?” I asked, secretly pleased I could surprise him. “It’s only snakes.”
“You don’t even watch these kinds of movies!” he said, then paused. “I guess you did see Lord of the Rings…”
But then my Big Disappointment crashed down on Monday, and I felt all of me curling inward, like a dried out orange peel. My mom was able to take the kids for a while after nap and I dove back into my novel (something I don’t think I’d have been able to do if I hadn’t been built up the day before) and punched out 1500 words, finishing a new section, editing an old one and beginning a second new section.
Then the next day I was again blessed by delightful, encouraging conversation.
The pregnant woman I spoke of last post actually stopped me so she could get paper to take notes on my random baby advice. Talk about feeling honored…
Then after getting the kids in bed I returned to the quilts, and the story from last night didn’t have room to include my surprise and delight that I was able to simply put them together by feel (this stage has previously required more measuring and pinning).
The quilts had been lying fallow for some time, because they had progressed beyond the “logical sequential” roots that had prompted me to pick up the project in the first place. I didn’t have the mental energy to make the shift and wasn’t trying to dig it up. But talking and writing successfully– feeling competent in these areas– seem to have emboldened me to return to something else challenging.
And here we are: almost done.
~ ~ ~
Maybe this is why the gordian knot has always appealed to me, both the quilt and the story; I feel an affinity to the convoluted but working logic, and the way one thing leads interminably to the next.
And I’m so thankful for the ways God chooses to encourage me.
In my mind thse things are very connected.
Today I stood in line an inordinately, unnaturally long time at McDonalds.
The children were climbing through tunnels like contented gerbils and I had a book to read, so I was able to wait more patiently than most.
While waiting (while reading!) my mind wandered to earlier in the afternoon where I left some of my soda bread biscuits with my hostess. She had glowed about how delicious they were, and while I was surprised at her enthusiasm, I appreciated it enough not to question it.
About this same time, still standing near the counter, I also remembered a random Dooce post I’d read where she glowed about how good food tastes now that she’s pregnant. The delicious idea of my plain bread being elevated by pregnancy magic struck me so hard I laughed out-loud (she is pregnant– I wasn’t laughing at the possibility).
An older gentleman waiting nearby looked at me questioningly and I smiled and went back to pretending to read my book, still fighting the giggles– this time brought on by imagining how this scene might have looked without the book.
Yes, I’ll admit I’m still riding high on a sleep deficit.
But here’s what I’ve gotten done:
Don’t know if I should reattempt last-year’s resolution.
I made it four months last year without buying books… for me. I had said I’d go all year, because I had enough to read that I doubt I’d run out.
I even started a “worth reading” page that linked to the reviews of the books I’d read.
The whole of it became an embarrassment (of sorts).
I found I didn’t really want to write about every book I read or re-read, even when I liked them (Coraline and Sport were two examples in one week), and some books I wanted to read but wondered how it would “look” to admit I had.
This is legitimate, I think, on something like LibraryThing where observers might get the wrong idea of your mind and character (i.e., if you have a book there you bought to dissect rather than to feed you).
The niggling that ate me was slightly less mature. Especially considering Coraline and Sport were examples of books I wondered on.
The trouble is that, on the whole, I seem to have excellent timing (or else, people are constantly throwing away good books– which is probably true), and when I see a book I’ve seriously considered picking up at full price, it seems silly to pass on it at $2-$7.
I bought nine of those today. Nine $2 books. (Two were even on my Amazon wish list!)
And this I’ve been doing all year. I have more than enough (unless my consumption pattern dramatically changes) to make it through the next year… but it’s so fun playing treasure hunt it’s hard to tell myself I won’t do it at all…
Dunno yet, but I still have time to think about it.
Here’s the next steps finished:
Set in the layout they will hold for time and all eternity:
Oops. Forgot to finish this one. Anybody still hanging, or have you googled it already?
The book’s unavailable, so this ending will have to be all my words (and month-old memory).
As you may recall, when we last saw Zohak he was in a state of fearful anticipation, having created (in his attempt to protect his future) the man who would make it his life’s work to destroy Zohak.
Kava, for all that he gave the first 17 of his 18 sons to be the brainfood of Zahok’s shoulder serpents, had known for many years without telling that secret which Zohak wanted most to know: the location of the young warrior Feridun.
With his leather-apron banner and all who would join him in resisting Zohak following, Kava led the way to the hidden fortress. Feridun saw the eager men before him and decided the time was right. Leading the way he began the desperate advance: expecting to be confronted at many points along the way, but meeting no one who would stand against them. Even as he reached the gates of Zohak’s city, where he expected the fiercest resistance and Zohak himself, he found instead the gates open to him, for Zohak was away, collecting more oathtakers in his growing fear.
The chamberlain left in charge (“who wished to retain his post, no matter who wore the crown”) did all blandly to make the young conqueror comfortable before slipping away to inform Zohak of the new state of things.
So great was Zohak’s fear of the young man’s coming, he did not at first seek to return and set things to right. The chamberlain gave an account of all Feridun had done: Set himself on Zohak’s grand throne, killed Zohak’s elite demon guards, set Zohak’s great crown upon his own head.
Each time Zohak merely laughed and said that it was the duty of a good host to put up with much folly and foolishness from one’s guests.
“Even when the guest enters the women’s quarters and takes the daughters of [the king you defeated] into his own arms?”
And this, at last, was enough to rouse Zohak’s anger: that his unwilling wives would welcome the arrival of a strange man and call him husband. He was near insanity in his fury, and went alone to his palace, scaling the wall to his garden and looking into it, planning with what subterfuge he would retake his city. But there, when he saw his younger wife sitting in the garden with Feridun, the hotness of his rage overwhelmed his plans and he rushed the intruder with sword and snakes.
But Feridun overcame him and was about to slay him when a messenger from the source of all that is good came and made it know Zohak was not to die. Ever. He would be bound, and left for all eternity in a forgotten cave with only his serpents.
This as a reminder to all of the reward of wickedness.