The Fog is Lifting...Slowly

Happy Wednesday, everyone!

Roommate is still stuck in bed, alternately snarling at the necessity of being in bed and moaning in pain. He's beginning to see the light, because the pain's finally gone down some. Good for him! (Note to self: never fall over backwards due to backing up and not seeing the rolling chair behind you. It's not good for your balance and your long-term health.)

My friend Olivia and I have spent a lot of time at Starbucks and Hooters since my last check-in. She's cranking out words like nobody's business - she's got over 30,000 just this month. But she's a pantser. Livvi is adamant about not trying to fashion a skeleton or musculature to hang her story on. She's just going for it. I admire that. But whenever I try it, I always get muddled, somewhere around the middle. And I usually have more storylines than I know what to do with.

Livvi's probably some sort of writing goddess in disguise who won't have to do a lot of rewrites. Me, I would. That's why I'm still plodding along with my Story Engineering. And I've made some progress.

For anyone who's using that method (and I know there's a few of us) I'm having a lot of fun with the "what if" questions. I've explored a couple of different things that didn't occur to me before, and I found a couple of things I needed to fix that way. It tightened up the overall plot a bit (for now), and since I've had to cut something I thought had real potential I might get another book out of it. Maybe.

On a different note, Livvi and I are at Hooters right now. We've had lunch, and are fueled with food and caffeine such that we can easily last several hours here. Woo hoo!  But something...off...is going on. We're in a booth, under a fan. Two men sat in the booth behind us. I'm sharing the side that their booth is on.

Now, I know we're mammals, and mammals are methane-producing creatures. And that's not the only odoriferous thing we produce. Sulfur is another. And I bet if this man's lunch break goes on much longer I'll discover more. Phew! This is a day I wish I had a wicked cold!

Oh, well. Maybe I can use it somewhere...in something...

In the meantime, happy writing all. See you Sunday!

Lara

Personal Implosions

Yup, my life has just blown up. And it wasn't even my fault. But my core has been rocked to such an extent that for most of the week, I haven't been able to write.

Let me sketch out the scenario for everyone.

My roommate Andy is completely disabled - a virus attacked his heart. Now it only functions around 25%. He takes lots of meds, and he sleeps a lot. Understandable, right?

Well, last Monday, there was a notification from our apartment's management company saying they were going to do apartment inspections on Tuesday. Okay, fine. They usually do that twice a year to make sure that fire alarms work and fire extinguishers are all good. However, they didn't come on Tuesday.

On Wednesday, while I was at work, and my roommate was fast asleep, they came in. He woke up to hear banging in the kitchen (I still don't know what THAT was about). He thought we had been victims of a home invasion, so he got his gun and chased them out. Only as they were running were they yelling "Maintenance." They also weren't management people he recognized.

So, the upshot of the matter is that even though the cops said they would have done the same thing and they left without doing anything to Andy, we got an eviction notice on Friday afternoon. We've got a week to get out.

As of yet, I have no destination.

Life has gotten very interesting, in a Chinese sort of way. Crap.