Good News and Possibly Bad News.

So, here's the good news:

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
57,068 / 63,000
(90.6%)

The possibly bad news? Well, there is no way--NO way!--that the projected 63,000 is going to be an accurate ending word count. According to my outline, I have at least twelve scenes left to (re)write here! If that ends up holding true (things have been evolving now as I get closer to the end and I don't have any idea what is going to happen!), I can easily see that adding another 12,000 words.

That makes for an ending word count of, um, 75,000. Not only is that about 10,000 words more than I wanted to end with, it also makes my word count meter look like this:

Zokutou word meterZokutou word meter
57,068 / 75,000
(76.1%)

SEVENTY SIX PERCENT?! I was at seventy six percent two weeks ago!

*takes deep breaths*

Astrology.

I don't have a ton of knowledge about astrology and most of the time I'm sure I don't even believe in it. But for some reason, even though birthdays rarely come up in the text, I do try to choose signs for my characters to keep them at least partially consistent with their dominant traits. I guess that's a backward way to do it, huh? Instead of that their traits depend on their birthdays, I make it so that their birthdays depend on their traits. That's the advantage to being the creator here. After over a year with these characters, I never did settle on specific birthdays for any of them. I had a vague feeling that Jared's a Scorpio, Mikey's a Capricorn, Daniel and Kendall are Leos, Rosetta's a Virgo, and Seth's a Pisces. That is as far as it got and none of those were set in stone.

But yesterday I was pondering a potential exchange that would require two characters (Seth and Rosetta) to discuss their birthdays. So, I chose birthdays (February 28th and August 28th) and took a quick look at some information about Pisces and Virgo for curiosity's sake. They way I've been writing them is pretty spot-on with what you would expect of people of those signs (especially Rosetta), which was a surprise on its own. Then I learned that they are opposite signs on the zodiac. One of the big themes of this story is about how different these two characters are from each other. I didn't plan their signs to be opposite though. I mean, I wasn't like, "Hmmm. Which signs can I choose to illustrate my point?"

It just happened like that! Pretty cool.

How things change.

I've been working on some intense pages over the past few days. And now I'm on to the next set! I have this tendency when I've finished rewriting a scene or selection of scenes to read ahead in the old draft to see what I want to use as I move forward. It seems to make sense, right? Why start from scratch when what I already have might work?

Sometimes--like right now--I get weirded out by reading the old draft. It's like, Who are these characters? Why are they saying this stuff?

Tagged by mandymorgan!

Two Men I’d Love to Date if I Were Single (and they were single):(When I say "date" here, I'm not meaning anything long term.) 1. One who is good looking, ten years younger than me, spontaneous, and completely unsuitable. 2. One who is good looking, ten years older than me, spontaneous, and completely unsuitable.

Two things I Am Wearing Right Now: 1. Black t-shirt with white polka dots. 2. Black cardigan.

Two Things I Would Want in a Relationship: (Maybe rephrase this to, two things I like a whole, whole bunch in my relationship?) 1. Lots of laughter 2. and sex.

Two of My Favorite Things to do: 1. Write. 2. Read.

Two Things I Want Very Badly At the Moment: 1. To finish my manuscript! 2. An agent who will sell my manuscript.

Two things I did recently: 1. Got my hair trimmed. 2. Ate German cookies.

Two things I ate today: 1. Taco salad. 2. Gingerbread from Starbucks.

Two people I most recently talked to: 1. My husband. 2. My manager.

Two things I’m doing tomorrow: 1. Going to The Cheesecake Factory for my sister's birthday. 2. Getting my eyebrows waxed.

2 longest car rides: 1. Seattle, Washington to Medford, Oregon. 2. Olympia, Washington to Boise, Idaho.

Two Favorite Holidays: Hmmm. This is more difficult than it should be. I guess I'm not much into holidays lately because they seem to cost me more money than I have (gifts!) and they take away time from my writing. Isn't that horrible?

1. Memorial Day and 2. Labor Day. Because the way my schedule works, I end up getting either five or six days off in a row with no obligations every time there is a Monday holiday.

Two Favorite Beverages: 1. Hot chocolate. 2. Shirley Temples.

Two Things you may not have known about me: 1. My first manuscript (FADED AS MY JEANS) was inspired by one of my memories of finding pictures when I was twelve years old from my dad's funeral. (He was killed in a car accident in a head-on collision with a drunk driver at the age of twenty-four. I was four.) Even though I'd always been told he was dead, I still held out the hope that it was a trick of some sort and that he'd come back someday. Finding those pictures dashed that hope, and I felt like that was the day he truly died. I wanted to write that scene -- a girl who hoped her dad was still alive even when there was no hope finding the pictures -- so I created a character and an entire story so that I could.

2. The manuscript I'm working on right now (THE FAKE MCCOY) was inspired by a memory of the day my boyfriend broke up with me when I was sixteen. I really don't remember HOW it happened or what was said. I just remember standing with my back against my locker and whatever it was that happened made me slowly slide to the floor and then sit there crying. And a boy came over to comfort me. (Unfortunately, that boy was the one who had just dumped me, so that sort of sucked.) I wanted to write that scene, but with a different outcome. Kind of as a basis for a new friendship that turns to romance. The scene I'd pictured didn't end up in the story, but there is one where a boy sees a girl crying at school, and it is a turning point for their relationship.

Two places I have lived: 1. Portland, Oregon. 2. Seattle, Washington.

Two of my Favorite Foods: 1. Mongolian Tofu from The Snappy Dragon in Seattle. 2. Chocolate-covered custard-filled eclairs from the Safeway bakery.

Two Places I’d rather be right now: 1. Somewhere warm. 2. Somewhere near warm water.

Second person.

Weird. I just attempted writing my kissing scene in second-person, present tense. "Why?" you ask. (Sorry! That amused me way more than it should have.)

Well, I was taking a few hours off, trying to figure out what the heck to do with this scene. And it came to me: Second! Person! Is! The! Way! To! Go! So revolutionary! So stand out! So fantastic it will be!

I was wrong. So very, very, very, very, very, very wrong.