Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Meet me in Hell?

Okay, have you noticed a pattern here? About every 8 weeks, I declare: I WILL POST ON A REGULAR BASIS FROM NOW ON. And then I don't. Good thing I'm not signing away my First Born Son, or the 2nd Born, or the 3rd Born, or even the 4th Born with these promises. Then I'd be out of kids! Then I might get more blogging done... but my posts would be all sad and weepy, and you'd quit reading me anyway. So much for good intentions.

All right, no more promises, just more posts, as often as possible. So, here's today's Mind Blowing Story:

I'm officially ditching The Blue-Eyed Twin, all 18,000 words of it.

Monday I met with a doctor, a geneticist, and his genetic counselor to get some facts straight for the novel. They were extremely knowledgeable, helpful, friendly, and forthcoming. For 24 hours after my meeting I didn't speak much. I was processing what they told me. Suffice it to say that I learned the premise of my story was weak. So I changed it. Remember: We hold the lock, and we hold the key! (That's one great thing about fiction, but it also applies to real life.)

Today is back to square one. Have you ever done that? "Control, A, backspace" is what my son @Elliott_Krause calls it. (He's 3rd born, the Iowa MFA student.)(Yes, I'm proud.) It's defeating and liberating at the same time.

I owe a huge debt to Writer's Digest magazine. In the current issue, one column about interviewing experts for your novel suggests doing your interviews sooner rather than later... so you don't have to ditch 18,000+ words if your premise is flawed. What if I hadn't read that, hadn't interviewed the docs until much later? Thank you once again, WD.

So, I'd better get back to the drawing board, with my notecards, timelines, and character charts. Here we go again! Skippin' along the yellow brick road ~ the opposite direction of Hell.

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