Anniversaries.

I was just reading through one of my journals and discovered that July 12th will be the one year anniversary of me reading John Green's LOOKING FOR ALASKA. Two days later I had made this entry (which had the mood tag "worried"):

********************************* Noooooooooo!

I just came up with an idea for a new novel - with a teen male as the narrator!

No, no, no, no, no!

I'm not listening to you, Teen Male! Get out of my head! La la la la la la!

That's right. Leave me alone.

{sigh}

Now I'm jotting some quick notes. *********************************

I didn't remember how closely those two things occurred!

Seth McCoy and I have been together for almost a year now. I don't want to get all sentimental and weird about it, but I guess I will anyway. It's been a tough year and I've thought about giving up on this project many times over. But I'm feeling optimistic right now and I'm glad I stuck with him. He might be one of the best things to ever have happened to me.

I mean, SERIOUSLY!

In my class, there is a woman who has proved herself to be abrasive and possessing of little patience and tact in her dealings with our class. In the first chat she said that no one's opinions matter to her except the instructor's.

Okay, then. Should I not waste my time offering critiques for her? Sounds terrific to me.

For our 15-page assignment last week, she posted the question: How many words on a page? What is the required word count?

The instructor said she isn't going to be picky about word count or margins. She just wants to see everything double-spaced and no more than 15 pages each week. (And, if we can't keep up at that pace, it's no problem at all. Less than 15 is perfectly acceptable.)

So, Cranky Lady posted hers today. She uploaded 25 pages. With only 1.5 spacing. When I adjusted it on my end to double-spacing, it is now 34 pages. That's two weeks worth of homework that she expects the instructor (and the rest of us losers, too?) to read for her this week.

What. The. Hell.

I like to do my critiques in order because it makes me paranoid when people skip mine and do crits for people who turned theirs in after me. But I don't want to do hers! I already read most of it and I have things to say, but I'm so annoyed. I really want to call her out on it, even if it's only in a "Bless you heart! You sure are keeping us busy by turning in two week's worth of homework this week!" way.

It isn't my place to say anything. It just bugs me that she would deliberately break the rules when she is the one who asked for the clarification in the first place.

First Writing.

For my class, I'm supposed to turn in 10-15 polished pages every week starting this week. (The first week we submitted story ideas, the second week was outlines. This is the first time posting parts of our actual stories.) I just uploaded mine, which ended up being a one-page prologue* (because my husband adores it and said I shouldn't cut it), the first chapter, and the first scene in the second chapter.

I'm afraid to be optimistic, but... I think I am! I think it's good. It's the best opening I've ever written for this story. At least, I hope so...

Oh, dear.

I am going to be going CRAZY for the next week, waiting for the feedback to come in. Now I just need to finish reworking my outline and writing the next fifteen pages to get my mind off it.

*It's a revised version a my most recent Tuesday Teaser posted a few weeks ago

Outline feedback.

I got my instructor feedback from my outline back. I DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH THIS INFORMATION! She said (among other things that I understand completely):

You really need to depicting a clear character arc for Seth, so that we know where he begins and where he ends, AND exactly how he gets there, emotionally, directly from the action of the story. I agree with others that right now this isn't as sharp as it could be, that the resolution/climax in Chapter 23 of Seth realizing he wants to change doesn't necessarily fit with a plotline throughout of seeing him either begin the book wanting to change and attempting to do so, OR spinning further and further out of control and then only here confronting a need to change. Whichever your preference is, each chapter should clearly be action that moves this story forward, whether it's showing him facing challenges to changing despite his clear efforts to do so (if the former choice), or showing him encounter situations and handling them worse and worse until something occurs that's a real wake-up call.

Now, my idea from the beginning was tell the story of an out-of-control young man who quit his binge drinking and drug use of his own accord. End of.

I killed off his friend to give him a reason to do this. For ages upon ages, the story started six weeks after the death and after this decision was made.

Then I decided readers couldn't see the change in my character because he made the biggest change off-screen before they even met him. In my newest outline (and chapter drafts), Seth's friend is still alive when the story opens and his death is discovered on-screen (sort of) in the third chapter.

Now, from what I gather, my instructor is saying that Seth's journey isn't enough of a journey? I have him decide to quit drinking, quit, sometimes wish he could drink, fall off the wagon, and then after the bad stuff goes down, realize he doesn't want to do it again. Essentially. (I know; this sounds like an alcohol is BAD story. It isn't supposed to.)

I agree that it isn't good enough like that. I guess I don't quite get how to fix it.

having him encounter situations and handling them worse and worse until something occurs that's a real wake-up call.

I don't think that's the story I want to write at all.

I don't know quite how to tell the other story she's suggesting: showing him facing challenges to changing despite his clear efforts to do so. But I think it's the one I'd rather go with.

Now I just have to figure out how exactly...

More on characters using profanity.

I'm working on my first few chapters. Again. Still. Whatever.

In a page over half-way through chapter one, I just added a scene where some jerk grabs Seth's arm and says something threatening. Seth's response: "Fuck off."

I can't think of anything more geniune he would say. He hates this guy. He isn't going to be all, "Screw you!" or something G-rated. That's fine. I don't think anyone will be thrown by it. (Except the people who would have been thrown by it anyway.)

The problem is, a few pages later, in a section I wrote yesterday in chapter two, Seth is alone, outside, being reflective. He thinks: Pretty much everything is better on the Hill than in the Valley. Even the fucking stars are brighter.

At the time I wrote it, it was the first time the word "fuck" showed up in the draft. I thought it was perfect that way because that one word shows his bitterness better than any other word could. Now, with him saying it in a moment of anger a few pages prior, it loses it's impact here and goes from seeming perfect to gratuitous.

Sad.