Given how much it’s been raining over the past 10 hours, it looks like spring has jumped on Oklahoma with full force. I took advantage of the warm weather this past weekend to do some yard work, which for me means less “start a garden” and more “pull weeds until your arms hurt.”
I cleared off the back fence, which had been almost completely overgrown, and some of the front flower bed, so that it doesn’t look like the house is completely neglected. (Somebody lives here! We swear!)
You know, nobody tells you how much yard work owning a house entails, until you’ve been there for 3 months and realize that the grass in the back yard is a foot high in some places, and you could probably bale it and sell it as hay.
So you decide to mow the lawn in order to get another special Adult Badge (like the Boy Scouts, only it’s for stuff like “Got a Mortgage” or “Pays Bills On Time” or “Can Successfully Care For Another Human Being”).
And then the lawn mower starts smoking, and your poor roommate, who is in Arizona and is the only person who can tell you if this is normal, gets a panicked phone call.
No, this did not happen to me.
I’m much better at yard work now. (And no, I did not actually set the lawn mower on fire, in case you were wondering.)
Anyway, I did actually have a point to this post, other than my misadventures in yard work.
Lucky Seven!
I’ve been tagged in the Lucky Sevens game. (Thanks, Rebekah!)
So, here’s how this thing works:
1) Go to page 77 of your current manuscript.
2) Go to line 7.
3) Write down the next 7 lines – sentences or paragraphs – as they are written. No cheating!
4) Tag 7 more authors and let them know.
Well, I have two different WIPs: my 2006 NaNo novel, which I am currently editing, and my 2011 NaNo novel, which is still unfinished.
So, you’ll get one from both!
While the 2006 novel has been edited, the 2011 one has not. And frankly, the 2006 one needs at least another two drafts.
NaNo 2006 – Fantasy novel
Coincidentally, these are the first seven lines from Chapter 7, which just happens to begin on page 77. Seems appropriate!
Ari stood solemnly next to Mason, uncomfortably warm in his dark brown mourning clothes. It was far too lovely a day for a funeral. The sun gleamed in the cloudless blue sky, giving out real warmth Ari hadn’t felt in over a month. No breeze stirred the air, and a few birds flew overhead, chirping to one another.
Funerals weren’t supposed to be on beautiful, cloudless days. There should be rain and darkness. This was a sad time. The weather ought to reflect that.
Of course, the weather had never asked Ari his opinion.
And here’s the second one:
NaNo 2011 – Steampunk novel
Genevieve scoffed. “Oh, I don’t think so, Captain. I owe the man four hundred fifty pounds. Even I would jump off an airship for that money.”
His glass halted halfway down from his face, and he stared at her, not quite able to believe what he’d heard. It wasn’t that she was wrong. She wasn’t wrong. She did owe him four hundred and fifty pounds. Hell, he’d done a lot worse than jump off an airship for four hundred and fifty pounds.
But why did it bother him that she’d said that?
And I would tag seven writers, but I’m pretty sure everybody I would tag has already been tagged for this. So if you want to share 7 lines from page 77 of your work, please do!
The Weekly #WriteMotivation Update
1. Upload at least 2 months of “The Barenaked Archive” posts.
2. Add at least 4 new reviews (movie, book, and TV).
Two down, two to go! Here’s the second: John Carter (and a Princess of Mars)
3. Edit 5 chapters in my 2006 NaNo novel, and outline the damn thing.
Well, though I haven’t done much editing, I have been outlining. In fact, that’s what I spent most of the weekend doing.
This is approximately 14 chapters, or slightly more than half the book.
And after spending so much time outlining (look at my shiny note cards!), I’ve come to a conclusion: I really have to go back and edit some of the chapters I thought I was done with.
So, instead of editing chapters 8-12, which is what I thought I would be doing this month, I’m going back to edit 4-8. On the plus side, outlining has really helped me to cut out wide swaths of the story and tighten it, which will make cutting out 60,000 words much easier.
Yes, you read that right. This was 109,000 for the first draft, and over 180,000 for draft 2. Now my goal is to get it down to about 120,000 words.
I really don’t know when to shut up sometimes.
4. Write another 10,000 words on my 2011 NaNo novel.
We’ll see how this goes. I’m really feeling the ’06 story right now, but it may be fun to put my steampunk playlist on once again and get to the zombie vs. automata fight. Because if you have every reason to have a zombie/robot fight in your book and you don’t, it’s a crime against humanity.
So how are your goals coming? Have you gained any Adult Badges recently?
Fire photo courtesy of thefixer.
Notecard photo courtesy my Samsung cell phone.
