First off, I would like to state that low-fat chocolate pudding does NOT satisfy chocolate cravings. I’ve eaten loads of it tonight, and it’s just not doing it for me. (Why low-fat? That’s what Dad bought.)
This has been an interesting night.
I am feeling very frustrated with my writing process on the novel. The other night I followed a shippy side-plot that had beckoned to me. I had a few doubts, and my Critical Reader TM had major doubts, but I stubbornly proceeded with the ship. Tonight I was terribly proud of myself because I sat down and wrote 1700 words about said side-plot: a conversation between the man and his sister, about the woman he was thinking of marrying. It fairly flowed, and I was excited because the sister has never been very three-dimensional before. Then I emailed it to slightlyjillian, Critical ReaderTM Extraordinaire…and she shot it down.
It’s not her fault, I must hasten to add! It’s mine, for not regarding her advice earlier. And she said she wasn’t going to stop me from writing it, but it was making her squick. Considering Slightly is the best reader I’ve ever had (not because of the gooey Michael fangirling, or the gooey Justin fangirling, but because she wasn’t afraid to tell me what bored her, and what made her mad in a bad way, and what made her mad in a good way, and what just plain confused her)–so I should have known better than to go full-steam-ahead on something that made her go “Huh?”
So it’s completely my fault that I had to throw away 1700 words tonight.
On the other hand, I did manage to keep the first scene of the shippy side-plot, and turn it into something that made SJ go, “Yeah, that’s much easier to read! And it’s logical, too!” That involved some editing, a few new words (296 to be exact) and a great deal of humble pie. *sigh* Oh well, the goal of this process is not to boost my ego, but to make the novel something that will sell. And slightlyjillian is a VERY great help in this.
On the good part of tonight, I got to chat with slightlyjillian tonight for a while. That’s always fun, and it always encourages me to keep writing, no matter how the novel is going at the time. Plus, she’s one of the best Christian encouragers I know.
Also, I got two loads of laundry done.
ETA: I wrote another 656 words before falling asleep at the keyboard, so that brings tonight’s total up to 952 words kept, plus 1700 thrown out. I almost had 1000 salvageable words, so that makes me feel a little better. Off to collapse now. G’night.
