Song of the day: “Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps” by Mari Wilson (or Doris Day). I love the show with this as the title song, so it’s no surprise that it kept tumbling through my head.
Hmmm. Another busy day I guess. Got a tad too little sleep, but considering we’re on a schedule there really isn’t much helping it. A done deal can’t---well, you get my drift. Hah.
There is the usual morning stuff that goes down this day; the sun is shining brightly even though there are veils of clouds flitting across the sky, and the dogs show their habitual enthusiasm when we head down to the house. Some chores get done, but instead of starting on the edit, I settle down to write.
Last night we had a rather fun idea to add to the story, some more background that will give the reader a nice insight into the male protagonist. While I set to it, big brother and grandpa head out to get a new load of sand for today’s building.
It doesn’t go bad at all, considering I tend to have some trouble shifting into a writing mode while fully set on editing. I actually manage to write out two pages of the new scene in the forty minutes it takes big brother to return with a full truck and enters the house asking me…rather hopefully, I might add…”How’d it go?”
“It’s coming along,” I answer, with a shrug madly continuing to type before the well is depleted.
Ten minutes later it is time to start working on the synopsis we’ve been thinking about for the past week or so. Now, as any writer (at least those I know of) will tell you, synopses are hell to write and so friggin’ annoying that they make me wanna hurl.
Nothing is worse than taking out the bare essentials of a story you’ve slaved over for endless hours, and put them all together in a cohesive and basic sum up…while still keeping it remotely interesting. There is no such thing, really. You can’t really create atmosphere and interesting characters if you have to stick to the basics. It’s just not doable.
We go through the chapter, picking out details and whining about which fact should be added and which should be left out, because not only do editors/agents want it cohesive; no, they want to have the entire story distilled until the life is sucked out of what is intense, passionate, funny or deep.
I honestly don’t get this part of the writing biz. Why would anyone in his/her right mind want an author to bother with such things? You’d think that they’d want you to write beautiful, or exciting, or scary, of funny stories, but no…ya have to diversify and do everything. Heck these days they’re even asking authors if they have a marketing plan. Strange how that works. Nothing against the marketing folks, but seriously, I don’t know…or want to know about marketing. It just isn’t my thing.
But enough of my rant, where was I? Oh yes, distilling the book. Aaaargh. We manage to get most of the first fifteen chapters down, it’s a slow and mind numbing task that makes me want to smash the computer, but what the heck. It needs to be done…apparently.
More than happy to call the task to a halt we head outside to do some building. Yay.
While the younger sibs head to the lower wall, middle sister start mixing cement and big brother starts on another set of stairs, I climb down the first stairwell, into the small yard where a small terrace needs to be built for bushes and flowers.
Rocks need to be moved over…they’re still there, seeing as they’re leftover from “the wall”…a deep gutter needs to be chopped and dug, and a foundation has to be laid. I dig in with fervor, really, my dogs watching from atop the wall with chagrin since they’re not allowed to join me. Poor babies, in the end they figure out they can enter the courtyard and cluster around the fence that surrounds me. Hah.
I get most of the foundation laid when the end of today’s work in the garden has come to an end, and it is time for us to head out to get another batch of rocks. The piles are getting to by mighty high these days, but since we really don’t want to pass up on the opportunity of the rather convenient spot we’ve found, we tear off and start loading up.
Lots of big rocks today, some definitely weighed more than Chaos (my Basset) hah.
They went easy though. Guess all the lifting is paying off, ‘cause now I’m literally tossing eighty pound rocks around. It freaks me out a little, actually. I’ll eyeball the rock, wondering if it’ll be too heavy, shrug, lean down and just try. First, it’ll feel too heavy but then it’ll come up easy as you please. And they just keep getting bigger.
There’s some laundry to be done after we get home and unload the rocks, some messes to be cleaned and dogs to be kept quiet while big brother and grandpa head out for another load before sunset.
Little sister made dinner so I wolf that down and start to prepare for today’s final editing session. We don’t get much done, just a page, but one is better than none, I suppose.
That done, midnight has arrived and I can take my dogs up for the final rituals of the day. I’m a little cross-eyed with fatigue, so I’m thinking I’ll turn in early…if I can. Hah.
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