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| It's a mushroom. |
If I write even five words today, I beat my record for Most Days Writing In A Row. And now, I'm devilishly tempted not to, just to say, "Eff it, I'll write tomorrow, but today, I'm going to do anything but."
I was audio editing the first of two identical chapters where Lara's sister walks in while she's performing a magic spell* and I vocally debate over whether I should say, "It was Emma, Lara's older sister, a puzzled look on her pretty face," or just "It was Emma, Lara's older sister, a puzzled look on her face." See, this is what this critical talk of the Male Gaze I hear in the media all the time has done to me. That I would worry that I'm male-ing up a story with almost no male characters in it, (seriously, I've recorded eleven chapters, and the only one with a voiced male character was the first one--and that was a pixie), where the females are protagonists and the antagonist is male . . .where an eleven year old girl is jealous of her older sister being the pretty one.
Well, I dropped "pretty" this time.
But this kind of second-guessing is not healthy, kids. It's hard enough to get these things out there without the spectre of Political Correctness run amok rearing its judgmental, unpretty head. If I don't have confidence in my writing after thirty years, then it's just not coming. And how many of you reading this will ever even read YIGH, the second "Lara and the Witch" book? Maybe me and one other person.
The word "pretty" isn't all that important, except that I'm trying to establish that Lara is the second child, and her older sister is the favored one, the one with tons of friends, the one who everybody's so proud of when she gets a B in Social Studies, whereas Lara always gets As and Bs. And look, I used to know some sisters where one of them looked like a fudgin' supermodel and the other one looked like a regular human being, and I would be crazy not to write about how that must feel.
But hey, at this rate, that book's never going to come out anyway, so why am I stressing?
In my (further) defense, I did look up pictures of mushrooms this week, so I could have at least a temporary cover art for this book if I put it out. I liked this one:
Because it is two mushrooms, one big and one small, representing Old Widow Holcomb and Lara Demming. I dunno, though--there are no mushrooms in this story, that I recall. And it's an awfully small image. But shrooms are cool, guys. Cooler than all of us.
I went for another good run tonight, and this was literally the first time I've ever encountered another jogger while I was doing it. The dude was way faster than me, and he had a flashlight bouncing around his waist,** so he seemed more like a spaceship (or one of those glowing deep-sea fish you see in documentaries). He passed me by quite easily, and for a minute or two, I imagined being given a proposition of some kind of reward if I could keep up with him (don't worry, they weren't all sexual), causing me to run faster than I normally would have.
But there was no reward, and soon, he was a block away, and then so far off I could no longer see his light. And as soon as he was gone, I wondered why I'd felt pressure to go harder than I was able, just because of a little competition. Still don't know, but I'm sure I got my mile and a half in faster than I otherwise would, and now the sweat is running down my face and neck as I type this. Swell.
So, I didn't actually sit down and write anything until after midnight, and when I did, it was on the above story. I had a scene I had intended to write where Lara points out the aforementioned male character to her aforementioned sister, and Emma doesn't see him there. I never actually wrote the scene, and later, when I got to the part where Lara tells the witch about it, I figured it didn't matter, it could've happened offscreen.
But no, it was just something I forgot to write. So I wrote it and narrated it and we'll be sticking it in Chapter 9 or so. You're welcome.
Words Today: 1091
Words In March: 37,487
P.S. I looked at where I was a month ago, and I'm around nine thousand words behind my total in February at this point. I was more dismayed, however, to discover that I worked on my pizza place story on Feburary 28th, and still haven't finished it. Well, some habits die hard.
*I must've just loved the concept, because there are literally two chapters where the exact same fronging thing happens. And the same devilish voice that wants me not to write today tells me not to do a goddamn thing about it . . . "Hell, write a third chapter where that happens," it says, ". . . but not today. Do it tomorrow."
**At least I think it was his waist. Eeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaugh!!
I was audio editing the first of two identical chapters where Lara's sister walks in while she's performing a magic spell* and I vocally debate over whether I should say, "It was Emma, Lara's older sister, a puzzled look on her pretty face," or just "It was Emma, Lara's older sister, a puzzled look on her face." See, this is what this critical talk of the Male Gaze I hear in the media all the time has done to me. That I would worry that I'm male-ing up a story with almost no male characters in it, (seriously, I've recorded eleven chapters, and the only one with a voiced male character was the first one--and that was a pixie), where the females are protagonists and the antagonist is male . . .where an eleven year old girl is jealous of her older sister being the pretty one.
Well, I dropped "pretty" this time.
But this kind of second-guessing is not healthy, kids. It's hard enough to get these things out there without the spectre of Political Correctness run amok rearing its judgmental, unpretty head. If I don't have confidence in my writing after thirty years, then it's just not coming. And how many of you reading this will ever even read YIGH, the second "Lara and the Witch" book? Maybe me and one other person.
The word "pretty" isn't all that important, except that I'm trying to establish that Lara is the second child, and her older sister is the favored one, the one with tons of friends, the one who everybody's so proud of when she gets a B in Social Studies, whereas Lara always gets As and Bs. And look, I used to know some sisters where one of them looked like a fudgin' supermodel and the other one looked like a regular human being, and I would be crazy not to write about how that must feel.
But hey, at this rate, that book's never going to come out anyway, so why am I stressing?
In my (further) defense, I did look up pictures of mushrooms this week, so I could have at least a temporary cover art for this book if I put it out. I liked this one:
Because it is two mushrooms, one big and one small, representing Old Widow Holcomb and Lara Demming. I dunno, though--there are no mushrooms in this story, that I recall. And it's an awfully small image. But shrooms are cool, guys. Cooler than all of us.
I went for another good run tonight, and this was literally the first time I've ever encountered another jogger while I was doing it. The dude was way faster than me, and he had a flashlight bouncing around his waist,** so he seemed more like a spaceship (or one of those glowing deep-sea fish you see in documentaries). He passed me by quite easily, and for a minute or two, I imagined being given a proposition of some kind of reward if I could keep up with him (don't worry, they weren't all sexual), causing me to run faster than I normally would have.
But there was no reward, and soon, he was a block away, and then so far off I could no longer see his light. And as soon as he was gone, I wondered why I'd felt pressure to go harder than I was able, just because of a little competition. Still don't know, but I'm sure I got my mile and a half in faster than I otherwise would, and now the sweat is running down my face and neck as I type this. Swell.
So, I didn't actually sit down and write anything until after midnight, and when I did, it was on the above story. I had a scene I had intended to write where Lara points out the aforementioned male character to her aforementioned sister, and Emma doesn't see him there. I never actually wrote the scene, and later, when I got to the part where Lara tells the witch about it, I figured it didn't matter, it could've happened offscreen.
But no, it was just something I forgot to write. So I wrote it and narrated it and we'll be sticking it in Chapter 9 or so. You're welcome.
Words Today: 1091
Words In March: 37,487
P.S. I looked at where I was a month ago, and I'm around nine thousand words behind my total in February at this point. I was more dismayed, however, to discover that I worked on my pizza place story on Feburary 28th, and still haven't finished it. Well, some habits die hard.
*I must've just loved the concept, because there are literally two chapters where the exact same fronging thing happens. And the same devilish voice that wants me not to write today tells me not to do a goddamn thing about it . . . "Hell, write a third chapter where that happens," it says, ". . . but not today. Do it tomorrow."
**At least I think it was his waist. Eeeeeeeeeeeaaaaaugh!!
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