LMTM III: Later Afternoon: ATTENTION SPAN BONANZA

[dragonlady7]

Bridget, don't feed the fish Chee-Tos. I know it would be entertaining, but it would only be entertaining for about point two seconds, and then you'd have to rescue the little bastards. And besides which, why the hell did you buy a bag of Chee-Tos when you knew you were going to be spending the next day in an all-out balls-to-the-wall writing binge? Hello timewasting munchies!

Mmm, Chee-Tos. I feel them in my hips. I feel them in my thighs. Change is coming: I will increase a dress size just in time for the holidays.
Sweet.

3:00 pm: 48,173 words. Fuck: I've reached a plot-point where I'd sort of decided I'd decide later what happened. Shit: it's Later. Now what? Should I skip ahead to a new spot, where I know what's going to happen? Should I write a new tenative off-the-top-of-my-head experimental draft? Those take longer, unless they're flowing well.
I dunno.


3:24 pm: 48,536 words. Coffee break! Have lit candles, as it is growing dim in here and I am cold. Candles in a large room: Will they make a temperature difference? They sure will, if I put one under the thermostat. Durr. Don't need it *colder* in here.
Am listening to Z's album of the Beastie Boys. It's called "The In Sound From Way Out." It's all instrumental, and is sort of discoey actually. Very weird. Note to self: Put up mp3 of track 2, "Sabrosa"-- it is exceedingly funky and features an awesome bassline played on a real live actual string bass. Coolness. Also heavy use of the wah pedal, with which one can never go wrong.

3:45 pm: 48,567 words. Attention. Span. Fried. Must. Write. More. Coffee. Not. Helping. I know! Booze in coffee! Oh joys!
Nugh. Wailing cello makes all rock songs better. Nnnnnngghhhhh. Stop the violins!
My heroine is a total pussy. SHUT UP OR I WILL SLAP YO-- I mean, keep whining. Please, whine prolifically. Go for it. Knock yourself out, you WORTHLESS BITCH.
Yeah, how about you whine about THAT, cupcake?!!
Shit, now she sounds like ME.

4:04 pm. 49,160 words. I have, by virtue of shameless stretching and nattering on, totally avoided getting to the plot point that I was sure I'd stick on. I have begun to plan what will happen, and all this stretching is me putting the characters where they have to be when the inevitable plot point occurs. tehta was wondering earlier about what other writers do about the mundane aspects of getting characters from point A to point B in either space or time, and here is the answer from my point of view: Shamelessly natter on! This is how I write half-million-word novels. Honestly: I just follow them around in realtime.
Time is passing very awkwardly in this piece, btw. This whole month, my transitions have been, like, "Two weeks later it was still snowing," or "By the time of the holiday feast she had managed to sew a new dress", or whatever. I am having some trouble because I decided a secondary character should be pregnant, and now I have to run back and forth to babycenter.com to figure out whether she'd be showing yet, if she'd have morning sickness, etc., all just to make sure she herself is consistent to the timeline-- and she isn't even the main character, she's just in there for backup...
Eh well.
Time to get out of my pyjamas, I think. I did put a bra on this morning, but I'm only wearing the bra and a sweatshirt, and some boxer shorts, and it's just not comfy anymore. Time for Actual Pants and an Actual Shirt. (For sufficiently 'ragged' values of 'actual'.)

Isn't this fascinating? I'm down to the last thousand.

Comments

[elentari-valie.livejournal.com]

I am down to the last 1,5 k.

Yiipee! come on! just a little more now!!!

[mother2012.livejournal.com]

Pregnancy:

Sick:
She can be as sick as is convenient. Sometimes you're sick the first morning (and know you're pregnant long before anyone can prove it, sometimes you're sick throughout the whole pregnancy. Some damned people never get sick at all.

Showing:
If she's skinny she'll show sooner. If it's the first one, she'll show later. It can be as late as seven months before anyone starts to wonder. Or as early as three. I knew one chunky girl who deliberately hid it. No one suspected right up until she had it.

[spacellama.livejournal.com]

To quote that obscure and annoying X-Wing pilot at the end of Star Wars: "Almost there..."