Jealous Yet?

Summer's not really for blogging, is it? I had planned on posting something right when I got back from New York after my birthday, but now two weeks have passed and the dust is forming around here. Well, since I don't really have any writing progress to talk about, I thought I'd just share some details and pics from my trip! Prepare to be jealous....

The bus trip from Boston to New York was smoooooooooth sailing. We left 13 minutes late but somehow got there early. I always think I'm going to get writing done when traveling but it never happens so I don't know when I'll learn. I read a bit, listened to music, and then dozed off. Next thing I knew all the signs indicated we were in the Bronx and I said, "already??" so it wasn't much longer until we got to Port Authority and then checked into our hotel.

First stop (like, immediately, because we hadn't eaten anything all day) was Black Tap! You've probably seen their Crazy Shakes all over the internet, so I just had to check it out and indulge my sweet tooth. (I wish the lighting had been better for the pics but I'm just not the type of person to bust out the flash and blind the bartender while my food is melting...) The burger was pretty good, too!

My actual birthday was pretty low key. We went out for breakfast and then did a little walking in Central Park (trying to channel the muse by doing one of his favorite activities but he wasn't paying attention...). The real event that day was dinner at Sugar Factory. They have these HUGE goblet drinks that they pour at the table and there's dry ice in the bottom that makes smoke come out. It was nifty. 

It also had lollipops and a candy necklace. Me drinking it for scale: 

Yes, it had alcohol, and yes I somehow finished it and yes I was a bit drunk but it was my 30th birthday so there. There was also dessert: 

I only ate about half of this because I could not get my husband to take even one bite. Party pooper. 

The next day we decided to be crazy and WALK from West 44th Street down to the Lower East Side because it would have been like a $36 Uber and I hate the subway and it was a nice day. We went to Koneko, which is a cat cafe! They had an actual cafe in the front and in the back there is a three floor section where all the cats are and we just hung out with them for an hour. All of the cats are up for adoption but I didn't think Gizmo would appreciate a sibling...I took way too many pictures to share so here are just a few:

BTW, my husband is definitely a cat guy. 

Then we had lunch nearby and walked all the way back to our hotel to get ready for...wait for it...*snicker*

Oh yeah! Did you know I tried to get tickets to Hamilton when it was still off-Broadway?? It was even more expensive back then, actually, so it didn't happen. I waited forever to see this. I've seen plenty of musicals but none where I already knew all of the songs. Of course it was amazing but I did already know everything that was going to happen. Plus I was waiting for the audience to sing along at certain points (LAFAYETTE!) but they didn't. Tsk tsk. 

I've also never been to a musical that my favorite actor used to be in. Was I judging the current King George? Maybe...I could write an entire essay on the psychological crisis of seeing this musical but I'll spare you. Still very awesome.

Ok, so I hate hate hate pictures of myself, but this was my outfit for the night. I don't go out all that much so I do like to dress up for the theater. My shoes will henceforth be known as Aaron and Burr because they were KILLING my feet! I'll be here all week, folks. 

Also, shout out to the best hubby ever. Our seats were in the very last row of orchestra, and there was actually a small gap in between them. I was sitting on the right side while my husband used the bathroom and this guy sat in front of me who was super tall and had an ENORMOUS head. Well, when my hubby came back he swapped seats with me so I could see better. *kissy face emoji*

And one of my favorite post-Broadway show treats is the devil's food cheesecake from Junior's. I can never eat the whole thing, though. 

And that's about it. I won't tell you about the trip back because it was HELL. I slept for about 13 hours straight on that Friday night. And then we went to a wedding the next day. Phew! It was quite a trip, though! I got to stuff my face with delicious food, hang out with some cats, and see Hamilton for my 30th birthday. Are you jealous yet??? 

So Busy I Can't Think of a Title

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I almost forgot to write this post! In my defense, I'm busy busy busy. On top of work, I'm getting ready for my birthday trip to NYC next week where I will be eating lots and lots of food and FINALLY seeing Hamilton. Whoop whoop. If you follow me on Instagram, I'll probably be posting a lot. Mostly food. Watch out. 

Anyhoo, I don't really know what to write about. Well, I haven't been writing much in the past week or so. Because, you know, busy. My Camp NaNoWriMo goal kind of went down in flames. I only edited for just over 10 hours, waaaaaaaaaay short of my 60 hour goal. I did get through the dreaded Chapter 11 AND Chapter 12, so that's good. There has been a lot more rewriting in this draft than I thought there would be. I've been adding a ton more words to this draft. I'm sure at some point I'll actually get to the last third of the novel where I have to completely rewrite it. Not looking forward to that as much.

A new development on the editing front is that my husband has been reading my chapters and we've been talking about each one afterwards. I don't want any beta readers until this draft is done, and, well, I don't want anyone reading the last draft because it sucks. But he read the first draft way back when so he's at least familiar with the story and honestly, just talking about it out loud even with someone who isn't a writer helps me to figure things out.

Of course, since he's my hubby he has to say how he thinks it's good, despite the fact that he would never ever read this book if I wasn't the person who wrote it. And I kept asking him if he thought the voice was annoying so many times that he told me to stop. It is kind of a confidence boost because as I go through things, I can see the parts I got right. The symbolism is crazy at some points and I think I had a big stupid grin on my face when I was explaining it. I also kinda just love when he's reading and then laughs at a line and I have to ask which one was it (I can usually guess).

Well, that's about it. I'm off work tomorrow but then have to work four days until I leave for my trip on Tuesday. I still haven't picked out my bus ride books!

Planting Seeds

When you're writing a story, especially a novel, you probably don't want to give everything away right at the beginning. Some details are better when you save them for later. But how do you get there? Do you drop hints along the way? How do you build up to revealing something? 

I've noticed this concept coming up quite a bit while I'm editing my novel, particularly with my subplots. I've always called this method "planting seeds," as in, I'm planting just the start of an idea that will be in full bloom later on in the novel (that analogy works, right?). Sometimes I worry, though, if this actually works. By the time that idea is in full bloom, does the reader care anymore? 

Example time! One of my subplots in UL involves Jordan's friends, Brian and Eric. Every time we see them, it's brought up how Eric has a crush on a girl, but he never says who she is. At first, it may seem like this is useless information, especially when there are much bigger things going on in the main plot. But later on in the book, who this girl is and how she factors into the story are much more important. She's not so important early on in the book, but when she actually does show up, I'm hoping that it's not so random because I've been hinting at her all along. 

I've done something similar when it comes to certain character details. Maybe one character doesn't want to reveal something about himself, but since the idea has been brought up, eventually it has to be explored. Or, another example, there's a certain detail about Jordan's mother that he keeps secret from the reader, but later on in the book, he's forced to reveal it to another character. I've tried to drop hints up until this point but really spent a long time avoiding it (but on purpose!). When it's finally revealed, we can look back and think, oh that's what he was talking about! 

Basically what I'm trying to accomplish is to just have a moment where the reader should think, "oh, ok, this will definitely come up again later!" Even if it's not necessarily important to the plot right at that moment. But my hope is that planting these seeds will make the moments later on where the idea is actually relevant not so out of nowhere. Hopefully the reader will believe it because they at least knew something was going to happen. 

The thing I worry about is whether the reader will notice or even care when these hints are dropped. Or maybe when the real idea is revealed, they'll think back on all of those hints that went over their heads. 

Do you plant seeds early on in your stories?

I Finished Chapter 11! (Sort Of...)

I was originally going to write a blog post for Monday, but on Sunday night I was actually getting some editing done. I figured I would have to pull myself away from editing in order to write a post, and my energy was probably better spent on the editing. Not only because I've been working on this novel for my entire freaking life more than six years, but I'm still pushing towards my Camp NaNoWriMo goal of getting 60 hours of editing done this month.

So how are things going? Still pretty slow, actually. But progress is progress, right? If I only get an hour of editing done every day, that's still a whole hour that I wasn't previously doing.

I've been stuck on Chapter 11 for pretty much forever. There were just a lot of things to work with. There was main plot and subplot. The chapter had three whole scenes, all with breaks in between, which I'm not a huge fan of. I like at most to have two separate scenes, or have a chapter that just flows through several days of action without actually making any breaks. Three scenes was a bit jarring to me, also considering the fact that not one, but TWO of them were make-out scenes. Seems a little excessive for one chapter. I kept wondering if both were really necessary.

The easiest decision for this chapter was that I did not actually need BOTH make-out scenes. Picking the one to keep was easy, too. The second one was longer and more in depth, actually progressing the physical relationship between my characters, which is what I'm aiming for whenever one of these scenes takes place. The first scene was really short and the purpose of it was more so that one character could manipulate another, which I realized I could just do with dialogue. The making out just wasn't necessary.

But anyway, this post wasn't supposed to be about make-out scenes (booooooooooooooo!). On Tuesday, I actually finished my edit of Chapter 11! And yet, the work isn't done.

See, when I started to work on that first scene, it was only two pages. And those two pages sucked. Seriously. I had a note on the first page that just said "make this not suck." So I basically approached it like I had to completely rewrite it. Maybe a few lines here and there could stay, but overall, completely new words. And that's pretty much what happened. And not just new words...a whole lot of new words.

Two pages eventually transformed into five. When I realized how long this scene was becoming, I figured it could probably stand as its own chapter. Now that it's finally done, my third draft has a complete Chapter 11. Woohoo!

However! I still have two scenes to edit from the original Chapter 11. Those two scenes will now be Chapter 12. This will probably throw me off when I talk about future chapter edits since I basically added an entirely new chapter to the third draft. But something is done, at least!

So, is my original Chapter 11 done? Not quite. But is my NEW Chapter 11 done? Yes! I'll take that as a win.

Old scene...

New chapter!

Failing at Camp

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How the heck did it get to be July so fast? As usual, I'm way behind on my goals. I wanted to be done with my third draft of UL by now and I'm still stuck on Chapter 11. I've been wanting to give myself a bit of a kick in the butt when it comes to editing, so I did something drastic. 

On Friday night, pretty much at the last minute, I decided to sign up for Camp NaNoWriMo. I chose a revision project and set my goal for 60 hours of editing. I figured that was roughly 2 hours a day, which was way more than I've been doing but not so ridiculous that I didn't think I could do it. Now with four whole days under my belt, how have I been doing?

Well, uh, not so good actually. As usual, whenever I set a goal, I never seem to come close. The very first day I did absolutely nothing. I don't even know why. I didn't have work that day. I don't really have a good excuse. The next day, I did make a solid effort, but didn't even get over two hours, let alone to four to catch up. I set the stop watch on my phone while I edited and ended up with an hour and thirteen minutes.

Then I had to change things up. When you have your goal set as hours, the Camp NaNo site only accepts whole hours as counting toward the goal. So when I tried to put in that hour and thirteen, I was only credited for the hour (even when I tried 1.25 it just put in one...yes I know that was giving myself two extra minutes...shhh....). I wanted those extra minutes to count, so I changed my goal from hours to minutes. 

So now it's 3600 minutes. How far have I gotten? As of writing this post (about 5PM on the 4th): 73. Yup, just that hour and thirteen from Sunday. I suck at this. 

The good news is that the day is not over, so maybe by the time you read this, I'll have added some minutes. The even better news is that it's still really early in the month, so maybe somehow and with some kind of miracle occurring, I'll actually get to my goal. 

I have no idea where 60 hours of editing will bring me in the story, but at least it will be further than when I started. 

Do you think I can still achieve my editing goal? Anyone else doing Camp NaNoWriMo? 

The Ghost of the First Draft

Do you ever find yourself making notes on a draft for editing, and find something so stupid that you have to yell at yourself in the margin? Well, I have. Probably more than once. How else can you get through to yourself, really, to stop making dumb mistakes? Mistakes that you should have stopped making a million drafts ago? 

It was Chapter 9, the chapter after my characters have had their first kiss, and so there was a paragraph that talked about kissing, which was fine (except I had used the word kissing like ten times, but that's another issue). But then I came across a really stupid sentence:

I knew I had always been more attracted to guys, I just didn’t realize that meant every single thing was going to be better.

I had to double take. And then yell at myself (and Jordan, too). No, not more attracted. ONLY. Only only only. Wasn't that the entire freaking point??? Helllooooooo? So I took my scary red pen and wrote this in the margin, just to make sure I got my own point across:

HE'S NOT BI.

Ok, so short story Jordan was hooking up with a girl at the end (that was really stupid and well over 6 years ago, don't judge me). First draft Jordan? Eh, well, I dunno, it was foggier. First drafts suck. There were a lot of stupid lines like this floating around. But now? Now????? Noooooooooo. How am I still making these mistakes? How are these tiny details slipping by?

I'm haunted by my first draft.

You think your first draft is gone by the time you're writing the third one? Think again! It creeps around, hiding in lines where you wouldn't think to look. In the dusty corners of undeveloped subplots. You think everything is going so well and your story makes so much sense. Then the ghost reaches out its ghoulish hand and grabs your ankle, tripping you up. Making everything feel off and confusing.

How many lines make it through repeated drafts completely intact? For me, not a lot. If there are any, they're probably dialogue. Even if what happens in a scene stays exactly the same, the words are always changing. Improving, I hope. But just when I think a chapter is safe and perfect I feel like I have to hire some paranormal investigators to exorcise these haunted lines.

So sometimes editing requires hi-tech ghost hunting equipment, scanning over every paragraph for a trace of first draft activity. Sometimes you need to have your holy water ready to flick on a stupid, stupid line. And hopefully with enough work, the first draft can stay buried.

Have you ever been haunted by your first draft? 

Miles of Smiles Challenge!

I'm a little late to the party. It's a long story. Ok, not really. I initially was going to not blog at all today, then I changed my mind at about 5 this morning but didn't have time to write a post before work. Anyway, I love bloghops so I decided to join in on this one, the Miles of Smiles Challenge, hosted by Clare Dugmore and Kyra Lennon!

The aim of the challenge is on June 12 (today) those taking part post their lists of things that make them smile/ make them happy/ cheer them up when things are crappy. The obvious things like family, friends etc. are excluded. What we're looking for is the little, almost trivial things, that brighten your day.

I thought I'd make this fun by adding some pictures (most of which I just took)! It's interesting that the things I picked can all be found in my apartment, but I'm a bit of a hermit, so it makes sense I suppose!

1. This little floofernugget.

2. My new math leggings (aka editing pants...we'll see if they work)

3. Things that keep me organized like my k-cup holder and makeup organizer (I love the top two drawers because they fit my contacts perfectly and I have different prescriptions for each eye so I know which is which! 

4. My ridiculous amount of dresses (remember the hermit thing? I don't go anywhere! But they're so purdy....)

5. The fact that it's King George month on my Hamilton calendar (aka Groffsauce aka my gay celebrity boyfriend...what, you don't have one of those?) 

6. Fun mugs! Especially when they're filled with coffee (I actually got the kissy face one for my husband because we're always texting each other that emoji) 

Ok, I'm done, I swear! Hope everyone is able to spread some happiness today!