Spent the day doing important stuff:
- Went to the bank (money is good)
- Got my hair done (critically important so I don’t take kitchen shears to it)
- Stocked up on groceries (so we don’t starve if the ice storm the weathermen are predicting actually hits and traps us in the house).
However, tonight I spent the entire evening writing. I started reading my manuscript from the beginning a couple of days ago, and continued that tonight, making a few minor edits and rewriting a couple of scenes I suddenly saw should be different. Earlier tonight I was telling the husband that I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I like what’s there, and I still think that. On the whole, it’s working. It’s a book I would read and enjoy.
I’m feeling especially good tonight about the scenes with the family. I think I have the family dynamic down; gotta love the typical dysfunctional family multiplied by a brood of siblings and their various spouses and offspring. To some it seems like a lot of people, but there’s a reason for the family being so large.
Bill the beagle is–well–I want to say inspired, but I’ll admit to spot on. I’ve had many compliments already about the scenes with the dog. Here’s a partial scene that encapsulates how Bill and Sam’s relationship is forming:
With a sudden sense of foreboding, Sam reached out and flipped on the overhead light (in the bathroom).
Chaos greeted her. Toilet paper was everywhere; an entire roll had been unraveled and strewn in fluffy piles around the floor. The shower curtain had been ripped from its rings and fallen half in/half out of the bathtub, where a shampoo bottle lay slowly gurgling its contents in a spreading pool of gelatinous pink. A movement to her right caught her attention and she turned her head in time to watch a sunny yellow hand towel, partially chewed, fall to the floor. The beagle was sitting on the bathroom counter—God knows how he got up there—staring at her with those large hound eyes, his low-set ears pricked forward, his mouth opened in what looked like a smile.
Sam saw the smile, and lost it.
“What are you, nuts? What the hell is all this? I left you in here for ten minutes. Ten minutes! You couldn’t control yourself for ten freaking minutes?”
Don’t we all feel that way about our pets sometimes?
All in all, I made good progress on getting back in the groove of the story. Which is good–tomorrow is the first of 12 consecutive days devoted primarily to writing, and the good news is that my learnings from doing this blog are translating across to the manuscript.
I will use this forum to let you know what I’m up to and how it’s going.
Categories: Writing
MOMENT by MOMENT 