Latest & Greatest

Haven't updated in a little while, so I figured I'd better stop by...

NaNoWriMo starts in 12 days and I don't know what I'm going to write yet. I have two plots running through my mind and they won't settle down and let me choose one. They're both good--one's a 40-year old mystery involving the Viet Nam war, the other is a post-apoc story involving the Hadron Collider. I suppose it would help if I spent a little time and outlined my plots, to see which one has more meat and will give me the 50,000 words in 30 days, but who has the time? Between work, monitoring the election coverage and getting ready for my writer's conference, I just haven't had the time. I need to find it, though.

The South Carolina Writer's Workshop starts this Friday. I'm heading to Myrtle Beach on Wednesday, I'll hang out on Thursday and head over to the resort bright and early Friday morning. I'm excited, because I'll be meeting new people and learning how to hone my craft, but I'm also a little nervous because I've never done one of these things before. Sure, I've been to conferences before but none like this. I guess what I'm really nervous about is my critique. A professional author is reading my work and will tell me what she thinks. It's the first ten pages of the story I was working on in my writing class.

Here's the thing...I had one plot in mind when I started that class, and as it progressed, I found the motivation for my protagonist wasn't good enough, and I couldn't think of a way to strenthen it. So I abandoned that plot and came up with another, which was good, but a bit cliche. I kept going with it, even as I had some doubts. Well, I sent off the manuscript for the critique and literally that afternoon, I came up with a much better plot that was closer in line to my original plot! Aargh! Now what do I do??? If she says anything about my plot being weak or cliche, I'll just tell her that I want to change it, but it was too late because I had already sent it in. Yeah, in other words, I'll wing it.

Gotta get ready for work. The Redskins won yesterday (yay!) and Papa John's gives discounts on pizza when they win. At work, when someone has a birthday, we cater lunch that day. I decided that we would do Papa John's if the Redskins won and George's Pizza if they lost. My choice, because it's my birthday.

Happy Birthday Me!