Conundrum

I've been working on building my story skeleton a la Story Engineering. Anyone who read my previous post knows I've been having a great deal of fun with the "what if" questions.

That led me to something of an epiphany today. The more I think about my story, and the more intricate it needs to get to reach the end, the more storylines I actually have.

How do I fix that? Things look all muddled, like a plate of spaghetti, when I reach the middle. For instance, I realized yesterday that a scene I liked, which I included because it illustrated the burgeoning relationship between protagonist and lover, may or may not be necessary. How can you tell? Or...how can you tell if it has enough "oomph"?

Now, I could be asking these questions because I only managed to get a couple of hours of sleep last night. My roommate (who goes out gaming on Saturday afternoons) and I decided to go to Walmart in the middle of the night to get hurricane stuff. (Thanks, Isaac!) Then I had to get up because a friend needed to see me.

Or it could just be that I'm tired enough to let the questions loose.

I go back to work tomorrow. I've been assigned 8 classes this semester, but I won't have any students until Tuesday. So maybe I'll get some more work done then.

See you all on Wednesday! (Yawning and waving goodnight)

Productive - Finally!

Morning, all. It's been a rather productive week - I've plotted all the way through Act I and begun Act II. My word count is abysmal - it's only around 2,000, but I hope to crank out some more today.

I laid some background down in the first act, showing how much my heroine enjoyed her job. (She's an Egyptologist on a dig, living in self-imposed exile.) She and her team make a profound, but intriguing, discovery. It's scientific importance could rival that of King Tut's tomb. Hayleigh's trying to keep her glee in check and approach things in a logical, professional manner.

Then she gets "the call." She refuses. The next scene is being written this morning, right after breakfast. (I'm writing this in a restaurant while waiting for my cohort, Susan. We always have breakfast together on Sundays.)

I did have some writer's block issues this week. Coincidentally, I also tried to quit drinking coffee. Again. Apparently that's not a good idea. Once I sat down with hot coffee (yes, it has to be hot), played one game of Free Cell to let my brain detach from the "real" world, the words started flowing again.

Who says coffee isn't a miracle drug? Woo hoo!!

On a more serious note:

I also started a new blog. It's called "Eating My Nightmare." It's about fighting my way through emotional eating in order to drop some weight and find a healthier place to live my life.

I've discovered that lots of people have food relationships that include an emotional component. Most of them, in one way or another, seem detrimental.

Throwing all of this out into the faceless void of the internet may help me, and maybe some other people, too. Feel free to come over, if you'd like.

See you on Wednesday!

Taking A Deep Breath...

Hi everyone! Hope everything's going well. Here's the local news from Orlando.

I've finished Calculus. I think I got a decent grade - I'll find out tomorrow. I do know I got a 90 on the final, so that gives me hope.

I have nothing to concentrate on for the next three weeks except writing - because I'm off until the 24th of August. Wow! I'm not sure how it's going to feel without doing any math. This should be interesting.

I need a good kick in the butt. Anyone want to help me with that? I've got to get my head out of the math and into the writing. Changing my mindset is proving to be a bit harder than I anticipated.

I'll accept gratefully any ideas that may be out there.

See you all on Wednesday!

Lara