we work in the dark

post-nano

2007-12-04T18:03:11Z

I'm on a writing hiatus.

Nano was strenuous, for sure. But not so much that I'm like.... exhausted or anything.

I just think that a hiatus is nice. Well deserved. A week or two, perhaps.

But that doesn't mean I'm not going to drop the tiniest

The fourth condition is that the arrangement may be cancelled at any time, for any reason, including but not limited to

1) Poor grades

2) Suspected pill overdoses

3) Inability to manage one’s health

4) Academic dishonesty

5) Criminal behavior

6) Drug or alcohol abuse

“I don’t know how they’re going to monitor all this,” Jill told me. “I think it’s like, the panopticon thing where as long as the punishments are hanging over your head, you won’t do it just in case someone sees you.”

“Especially if that someone is paying your way,” I said. She nodded and passed me the bag of Twizzlers, if I recall correctly, because I know that Vixie said something about Red Dye #5 and how I was going to be sterile, before launching into a tirade against Mom and Dad.

“How can they panopticon me if I’m taking care of my college expenses?”

“But what about books?” Jill said.

“I’ll use my savings,” Vixie said.

“Yeah, at five hundred bucks a semester see how far that gets you.”

“Five hundred dollars?” Vixie was a little shocked. I remember that clearly. It’s only happened about once in my lifetime.

straight from the mouth of everyone's favorite little sister, Christine.

In the meantime, I'm thinking about that dirty, dirty word

REVISION

I still have yet to COMPLETELY revise a book

I'm still not sure what's the best way to go about it.

Usually I would say:

First, fix all the giant gaping plot holes, the big chunks you know you want to cut, etc.
Then adjust the tone/remainder of the book to suit the new changes.
Last, run through, sentence by sentence and fix the crapp-o writing and the typos, the general red-pen type stuff.
And then, one more read through. For continuity and clarity mostly.

Repeat until done.

But this time around, I don't really HAVE any giant plot holes. I can think of maybe.... 2 sections that I know are shitty and need to be replaced, but that's like, 10 pages tops.

Hmmmmm.

Plus there's the whole Four Voices, One Story deal. Kind of messes things up a li'l bit.

But I can't help but feel like I'll operate better with a PLAN.

Tentatively, I'm thinking THIS:

Step One: Line by line edits.

Why?

Because I can give it a readthrough (which I haven't done yet), perk up my writing, and take notes as to where some structural problems might lie. Make note where things get slow. Make note where things seem random, which characters, situations need more time/less time etc.

Also: I wrote in this ungodly format - single spaced, with line breaks between paragraphs. It looks pretty to me, but it's not the accepted standard for an MS. And I can't just fix it with a "select all" click-click kind of thing either. If I do that, my ms becomes 365 PAGES!!! I have to go through and delete the spaces between EVERY paragraph. So that has to be done eventually, and I can do it now, get it over with, editing as I go.

Step Two:

????????

Step One is enough for now. I also have to find a way to print off a copy of the damn thing. Park Library, I miss you! Maybe I'll make a late Sunday night visit when I'm up this weekend and..... be very very devious and take advantage of my former place of employment HAHA.

I'll end on this note:

without nanowrimo..... I've been BORED.

winner!

2007-12-04T03:52:45Z

I bet all of you have been waiting at the edge of your seats to find out how Nano turned out for me.

Well, I won.

Yay!

Here's how it really went down:

After Thanksgiving, I still had like, 15K to write. So after a few days of procrastination, of thinking there was no way I could finish, I got to it. I was putting back at least 2K every day, a few days more. 7,000 words shy of 50,000, I ran out of story. I'd finished my last character's section, and everything that came after was pure filler. Extra scenes because I liked a side character. A scene that I wasn't going to include, but thought I might.

On November 30th, I had 835 words to write. I wrote them in the backseat of my boyfriend's Jimmy, in the parking lot of an elementary school while he set up for a jazz concert. I uploaded my book for the wordcount later that afternoon in a location extremely fitting, being that it was pretty close to being a place featured prominently in my book. I huddled over my laptop, stealing wireless internet and running on a 9% battery, tucked in between aisles of a smelly, dusty used bookstore.

How do I feel about the quality of my writing? Good. There were very few times that I thought my writing was just utter CRAP. Which is more than I can say for my first book (Sorry, Mer, I love you, buuuuuutt....) Is it rip-raring and ready to go? No. I half want to dive into revising, I half want to wait. I think that latter half is going to win.

i'm a rockstar

2007-11-28T23:59:37Z

Doo-doo-doo!

Draft One of the extremely tentatively titled novel:

The Collegato Curse

Is COMPLETE!

62,427 words.

Now where to put those extra 4,288 words I need to win Nanowrimo..........

miss_author @ 2007-11-25T16:59:00

2007-11-25T22:01:03Z

Startling revelation:

I might not finish this book in 5 days.

Funerals + Holidays + Broken Comp = not so much on the word count

And now that I'm comfy at home and ready to go, I'm all procrastinatey.

Lord, beer me strength.

miss_author @ 2007-11-21T19:27:00

2007-11-22T00:30:30Z

for the first time
all month
i feel too mentally exhausted
to write
my plot got a little lost
after not writing for a few days
and now i'm not behind in word count, but in momentum
what is happening to Christine? To everyone?

33488 words.

16512 to go.

9 days left.

truckin

2007-11-16T04:32:08Z

Goodbye, Amelia!

Hello, Christine.

Last quarter.

I'm at 26,365 words for nano
41,787 total.

Which means I have a little 25k for Christine.

Which is OK.

Because she has a lot to say.

thick skin

2007-11-15T01:15:49Z

Hey!

Even though

I felt the least like a writer that I've felt in years
I felt pretty slighted, hopeless, insulted, sensitive, and pretty much like...

a useless hack who writes complete tripe and will never ever succeed at writing anything ever that anything will want to read and I should just give up now and probably give up life too while I'm at it and let the rest of the succeeders-at-life use my precious resources that I am now wasting

Even though

the thought of opening my word document and trying to write anything
was the equivalent of falling into my own open grave

I still did it

and I pounded out 2245 words

and in the end

felt pretty good

about what I'd done.

And I'm glad I did that.
I'm glad I could to it.
I'm glad to pat myself on the back for that right now.

Because even useless tripe-writers like myself will be happier if they self congratulate.

My life has had far too much self-loathing in it for me to deny myself a tiny moment of self-proudness.

teaser tuesday

2007-11-13T19:21:48Z

Ladies and gents,

I am officially NO LONGER BEHIND IN NANOWRIMO.

Way to go me!

I'm actually about 600 words ahead of schedule.

(This is disregarding the fact that I wrote zero words today. But it's only 2 pm!)

Anyway. I am at the magical number of

20,675

Nanowrimo applicable words

and

37,388

Total Words!

Holy guacamole!

Last week I gave you Jill, the driveway stripping mental case. This week I shall allow you a peek into the mind of her little sister, Vixie, the anal retentive, dirty-mouthed tense-oid.

Cooper Vendelu is a pixie from Hillshire High with a wicked backhand, and I’m focusing absolutely all of my energy into creaming her in the face with my serve.

“Out!” she squeals as my almost-ace nails her in the sneaker, two inches behind the white line.

“Ad-in, second serve.” That’s tennis-speak for “one more point and she’s toast, but only if I don’t fuck up this serve. I toss the yellow ball in the sky, and it hovers in front of the sun for a second. I catch it and try another toss. Again the sun catches me in the face (note: get sunglasses from car after kick Cooper’s ass) and I catch it. Cooper looks miffed, even though she has that perfect tennis girl stance that reeks of country club lessons. Bounce, bounce, toe to toe, flipping the racket back and forth between her hands.

I take two steps to the left toss high, and nail her one. It bounces just before the edge of the line (perfect), but Cooper’s already back and backhands it back over. I’m ready though – she’s country club lesson good, but also country club lesson predictable – my own forehand ready and I hit one down the line to make her run for it. By the time she gets her short legs over to return, I’m muscling to the center of the court. Her shot is clean, but kind of lobby. I jump up and grab it before I can even tell if it’s headed in or out, and I slam my racket all the way through. The ball bounces hard and sails over her pretty little pixie head.

I'm definitely hitting my stride with this story. Unlike Meredith, I kind of feel like I know what I'm doing.

And I surely want to hit the ground running on a third book. NaNoDecembro?

We'll see how I feel Nov. 30th

word count / good day

2007-11-11T21:31:33Z

Yesterday and the day before, I was a grumpy gramps.

I didn't want to write. I thought my book was crap. Vixie's story was completely falling flat at the exact point in the timeline when it should have been peaking. I was distracted, moody, and

INCREDIBLY

BEHIND.

Today I was gearing up to be even more grumpy grampsy. I thought of some thing to cheer me up (going grocery shopping, buying new t-shirts, cleaning my room, finally going to the gym)

But I had cleaned my "desk" off last night. Thrown out the Halloween weekend wine bottle and put away the dirty clothes. I even wiped it down with Fantastick.

And once I got back from the grocery, looking at the white desk reminded me of my white laptop sitting on the far edge of it, and how I have to have to HAVE to write so I don't get so impossibly behind that I'll just GIVE UP.

So I wrote.

And it seemed like I would write and write and type and type and then look at my auto-word count (Thanks, Mac Word!) and see

200 words.

Dammit.

But my bed was comfy and warm. And I had a pretty pink Rockstar to drink. And I really didn't want to go to the gym anyway.

So I kept going. Said I'd finish Vixie. And as I neared closer to the end, writing this scene between Vixie and her parents that I knew had to be written but hadn't thought of how important it would be.... the words just kept increasing and adding and more and more and more of them came out.

Until the last ones

"Amelia laughs so loud in my ear, I can’t help but follow right along, like it’s a song I know by heart but haven’t sang in years."

Holy schmaltzy mushiness, I know! But Vixie is a character who could use a little more mush in her life, and I think it's the exact note her story needed to end on.

Even if the climax was a little fuzzy and sloppy. Even if my story hasn't done her justice yet.

And I word counted.

16,068. Out of 18,000 some odd. Which is reasonably behind.

And I dug up Jill's story, added the two together and got this beautiful number:

31,752.

96 single spaced pages.

And I remembered that it's a gosh-darn book that I'm writing, and it's fucking coming along.

YAY!

And since I've finished Vixie in 11 days or less, that puts me exactly on schedule to take 10 days on Amelia, and 10 days on Christine, and then it will be December and I will be done, done, DONE.

The bug has bit. I wrote short stories in college, and enjoyed them, but it was hit or miss. When a story hit, I was happy and unlikely to change a thing. When I missed, I tossed it aside and worried about something new. Never did I experience this kind of immersion and drive and wonder at the complexity of writing. Never did I have this urge to write more and more and more and really figure out how to write books and how to write them well.

I'm glad I found my medium.

marathon

2007-11-06T02:27:29Z

Dude.

I have been writing. All. DAY.

Damn you, Nanowrimo, DAMN YOU!

Not really it hasn't been awful. Just... strange. Like just now, I was writing away and kind of decided that even though I'm still a good 2,500 words behind, I was done for the day.

And I couldn't think of anything else I wanted to do for a few minutes.

Like writing was my only option

9:30 Wake up. Eat 15th bagel in last five days. Watch The Office.
10:00 Watch more Arrested Development. Force self to write till 3,000 words before... leaving to go out and write.
11:00 Run errands. Buy things don't need like pink sweat pants, lamps, and car coat sweaters.
12:30 Lunch with Francie and favorite god child.
1:00 Starbucks on a whim. Force self to write to 4,000 words
2:30 Pick up sisters from school. Watch Arrested Development while pounding out more words.
4:00 Bring sister to voice lessons. Write to 5,000 words while waiting for her to finish.
5:00 Home. Cook dinner. Boil applesauce because writing and watching Arrested Development.
7:30 Force self to go to gym
8:15 Home, and write to 6,000 words
9:15 Sit and wonder what I could possibly do, other than write, tonight

The answer? The Sims 2. I may bring the laptop down to write during load times because um, I'm just not a big enough dork.

Also, subscribe to my Youtube page to stay updated on my video blogging. I do it quite often. In fact, I might do another one now, just to celebrate that I wrote so much.

Although, contractually, that means I HAVE to write more tonight.

Gah.

back in the game

2007-10-30T17:01:53Z

Hello.

Nice to see you too!

Things are going well in the writing world for miss_author (misleading name, I know. I'm no author. Yet. Ask
antler3649 about his short story/essay/something I critiqued for class years ago that discusses the author vs. writer vs. useless hack paradigm.

Anyway. I’m writing. And here’s a

“We'll talk when your father... Jill! What are you doing?”

“I'm fine, Mom,” I say, throwing my hoodie on the cement of the driveway. “I could be fine.” I unbutton my jeans and squeeze myself out of my too-tight jeans. “Just let me be okay.”

“Jilly, put your clothes on! You are acting crazy!”

Even though I'm standing in the driveway in my briefs and a t-shirt, even though goosebumps are covering my legs, even though I must look completely insane, I have never seen things more clearly in my life.

“Mom, where do you think I get it from?”

of what it is that I’m writing.

And my 15,000 words will, over the course of the next 30 days, blossom into a completed novel.

HOLLA.

I’m excited.

I’m registered for Nanowrimo, even though it’s more like Nanocheato. Or John Green’s NAFADOYBIMSCOM (National Finish A Draft Of Your Book I Mean Seriously Come On Month). But whatev. Spirit of creativity, people! I’m going to finish!

I’M GOING TO FINISH!

e3

2007-10-25T03:06:04Z

ep 2

2007-10-22T18:59:10Z

doo-doo-doo doo!

2007-10-21T22:53:31Z

don't steal them

2007-10-15T01:24:18Z

A 15-year-old boy whose step-dad is dying of cancer.
A 17-year-old girl who is getting political and going to Washington.
A family of equally fucked up sisters who fight to save each other from destruction.
A 14-year-old city girl who almost gets expelled for a guerilla body-image campaign.
A 16-year-old hippie chick who falls in love for the first time.
A 16-year-old do-gooder turns into a psych-ex-girlfriend.
A 17-year-old who cheats on her boyfriend to avoid a boring suburban life.

My problem is I JUST HAVE TO PICK ONE and fucking WRITE IT.

Gah.

I'm doing Nanowrimo, I think. And I'm choosing the family drama. But I'm making it a comedy. Jill, Vixie, Amelia and Christine in the month of November. Mental patient Jill, bitchy Amelia, flighty Amelia and cynical Christine in November.

hiatus

2007-09-27T13:45:37Z

Where

have I been?

Working.

(Story times, picture books, problem patrons)

Thinking.

(Do I have what it takes? Will I ever learn how to write a freaking book? Should I take more time off before grad school?)

Reading.

(Writing the Break Out Novel. Catalyst. 10 Days In The Hills. Etc. Etc..)

And

Writing

(Something new. I need to step away from M. We have SUCH the love hate relationship and right now I want to throttle her for not fitting into my time frame. I need to WRITE. I need to WRITE SOMETHING GOOD. With M, it would take far too long to fix her. I just want to write something new. So I will. I don't need to mull over it and debate. I need to effing write.)

So I am.

Something close to home.

Something a little ballsy.

Something that will be hard to make come alive, hard to make sense of....

but

something exciting.

speedy

2007-09-13T15:37:51Z

Got a revision draft that's inching along at a steady, but uninspiring rate?

Are you just dying to finish the damn thing, but can't seem to find the time and concentration to get any real progress done?

Might I suggest the following technique:

1) Query an agent
2) Indulge in unrealistic fantasies that upon reading, he or she will immediately demand a full manuscript.
3) Refuse to ruin one's future bright career as a novelist by having an unfinished draft. Write often, cut and paste liberally, and watch the numbers fly.

Perhaps it's not as well-crafted as the slow and steady rate, but fuck, it's getting done.

30,000 words. Over 5,000 in the past three days. The past three WEEK days.

Let's see how the weekend goes...

tuesday

2007-09-12T03:13:09Z

Been writing, hit 25,000 words today! was excited, but then realized I'd upped my goal to 70,000. So, not quite 50% yet. The more I write, the more I realize I have to rewrite fucking everything.

BUT THAT'S OKAY!

My story is evolving. Even the most beautiful prose becomes irrelevant if you change the paths your characters choose. Or when their decisions start seeming more obvious and the obvious needs to replace the stagey.

The more I write, the more I loathe having a day job. The more sacrifices I realize I will have to make to succeed. The more I really REALLY want it.

There's an agent from the Knight Agency accepting YA queries directly to her LJ this week. I kind of want to do it, even though my current draft is undergoing a massive face-lift. What if she's like "Love it, but needs some revision. Do this this and this and send it to me." Then I'll have time to finish, and still a shot at a real-live-agent. Plus if she passes, I can *probably* requery through her agency, since more people would see it that way. Advice?

“Can you finish that in the car?” Kelly says, pointing toward my OJ and donut holes. “Calc test first hour. Kyle wants to review with me before it starts.”

And there we have it. The gauntlet has been thrown. Or something.

I could take this moment to let my bitchy comment spill out. Or I could say something about how I’m happy for her, for him. Or to ask the millions of questions about how Kyle moved from Kyle Vandermeer Plan to Kyle Vanderboyfriend.

“Mmkay.”

And that’s the eloquent path I choose.

oh goodness

2007-09-05T13:59:35Z

So yeah. I'm full of excuses. I won't give you all of them because you can probably already guess what they are. My new job doesn't allow for time to jot down ideas and sentences, so I kinda lost momentum.

Buuuuuuuuuuut since I owe you not one, but TWO teaser tuesdays, I'll give you a bit, fresh off the stove, the first bits written in a few weeks!

The pain in my stomach turns into an ache that makes me want to sit down, so I do. I’m in the den, so I plop myself front of the computer and sign onto my email. I haven’t checked it in like, two weeks or something. Kelly tells me I should check it every day, that everyone’s online, that I’m missing out on half the world, but the only web site I like is this one: http://www.imdb.com. I keep it written down on the notepad in the desk drawer so I won’t forget it, since I didn’t get the “favorites” thing Kelly was telling me about. I usually just use it to check out new movies, or see if the bit players in this movie were the same actors as the bit players in that movie.

I run the cursor over the screen and almost start up the instant messenger program like I used to every night to talk to Danny after I got out of work, or after he did. (Speaking of work, when am I ever going to get back on the schedule? Mental Note: Call Tan-Fastic later and figure it out) But I stop. There’s no one on there I want to talk to. Seeing the little friends counter say “0/3” would really brighten my day, I’m sure.

When my email loads up I have a frightening amount of junk-mail. Like, hundreds of penis pumps and hot singles and free coupons. I’m not sure if I should just delete them all or open them one by one or what.

miss_author @ 2007-08-30T16:28:00

2007-08-30T20:31:09Z

So I'm going to take a guess and assume that writing porn for teenagers is not really much of a growth industry.

Which sucks.

Something about the innuendo, the details, the excitement of trying it all for the first time, the playful "is she REALLY going to write about THAT" element that really turns my crank as a reader and a writer.

I'll compromise by infusing my books with as much pseudo-smut as I comfortably can. Promise.

focus

2007-08-27T21:48:50Z

I am a fan of very complex, comprehensive goals. I need to break things down to think about them properly.

But I have more success with goals that are simple, straightforward, and more importantly...

singular.

So here it is..

Cavender, I love you, but I gotta go with Meredith for now.

And I will be done with her by Nov. 1.

Just in time for Nanowrimo!

on stupid laptops and margins

2007-08-22T00:02:06Z

The past couple weeks have been getting me down, schedule-wise. I've been writing at work, but only writing Cavender.... and then coming home and pounding out only a few hundred words on Meredith at night, while I watch Sex and the City on the couch.

Which was an okay schedule, but not the best. Meredith needs more attention, and I'd always be sleepy and usually drinking wine and tired.

And then, one fateful night, the power cord on my laptop completely crapped out on me, thus throwing even THAT tenuous schedule out of whack!

Writers are such creatures of habit. Something about the creative process needs nurturing and atmosphere and habit to occur. Writing needs this little creative bubble that's sometimes hard to make.

In other news, I have more pages than I thought I did!

MS Word has automatic margins of 1" top and bottomand 1.25" right and left. MLA format is 1" all around, so Word is a little generous. When margins are bigger, pages go faster! But OpenOffice apparently operates with auto-margins of .79"!! SHOCK!! HORROR!! My 56 pages turned into 65 with a few swift clicks. That's better!

But that also means that I've written nearly 70 pages and Meredith has yet to....

Talk to this one side character who becomes important
Talk to this one side character who becomes VERY important
Go to her job
Have more than 1 scene with her sister.

Oy. Revising the revisions is going to have to happen

Anywho, so I left you with Meredith and her Mommy.... and now I bring you, Meredith and her best friend! Dialogue, to mix things up, although I will say it's not my strong suit

Before I can take a single step away from her, Kelly’s gloved hand is on my shoulder.

“What kind of plan?” she asks.

“I don’t want to inconvenience…” sarcasm rising in my voice.

“Tell me,” she says. And her eyes are so sorry looking I have to tell her. Not sorry like I’m pathetic, but sorry like she’s sorry that she’s so pathetic. I hand her my mess of notes and tell her what I’ve been thinking. How I need to get over Danny once and for all, which means I need to find out the truth and I need her help.

“Okay,” she says, glancing over the pages as they ruffle in the cold wind. “But what does Freddie Prinz Jr. have to do with anything?”

“He has everything to do with everything,” I tell her. When she looks at me like I’ve just grown a horn from the middle of my forehead Iknow I'm going to have to explain it in detail. For being such a brain, my best friend sure knows nothing about Romantic Comedy History.

rough week

2007-08-15T04:02:48Z

I've been working more on Cavender than Meredith, but I lost a good chunk today in a massively bad computer error so I am pissssed. I did this whole scene where you meet her dreamy cad of a government teacher as well as various important classmates. ALL GONE.

So tonight I'm back to Meredith. I'm taking it one scene at a time. I keep getting anxious about if I'm doing this right, if my plot is going the right way... and then I freeze up and think everything sucks and my whole book sucks. How it's just a damn practice book and I should toss it and focus on something new.

But I gotta tough it out. I remind myself that, unlike the first draft, I DO have an inkling of what's going to happen next. And I'm only like, 50 pages in, so I have so much more room to meander and mess up than I feel like I do. And really, all I'm doing is aiming my story to fit itself, to become what it already wants to be. I don't need mad ideas and an articulated, incredible plot. I just need to write the damn thing.

Bird by bird. Get from the auditorium home. Get from the auditorium to the car. Get from the car to inside. Get from happy to sad, and back again.

Anywho, here's some freshly minted prose. So freshly minted, I just wrote it like, 15 minutes ago. Enjoy!

I nod. I never know what to say when it comes to my dad. I mean, it's not like he died in some tragic accident that tore us all to bits, leaving his name verboten in the house. He just met a lady playing online euchre, had some sort of internet affair, and decided to go live with her and her seven show cats in her very hairy house in Indiana. The parting was fairly amicable – no screaming, no custody battles, child support checks came in on time – but Mom was a complete wreck. It destroyed her for almost a year. She tried to put on a good show for me and Natalie, since we were only thirteen and seven, but she spent a majority of the year in her pajamas in front of the TV. We kept her company, cheered her up, but she wasn't back to normal for a really long while.

highs and lows

2007-08-14T04:19:02Z

Hmmmm

WRITING IS FUCKING HARD!

Two weeks ago I was like "oh yay, I'm such a great, productive writer LOOOOK how much I can write.

Last week the enthusiasm was waning.

Now, I'm convinced everything I write is disgustingly bad, my ideas are hopeless, even if I could execute them well, and oh yeah..

I'll never succeed at what I do and should just give up.

Writing is full of these fucking cycles. I think part of being a writer is pushing through. Even on the days when you are a talentless hack, you can write some talentless, hacky prose, and on those days when you are amazing, you can fix it.

something new!

2007-08-07T23:54:00Z

So the following things have kept me from being a very good writer in the past week:

~ A four day jaunt to visit my boyfriend
~ 20 hours of work, +4.5 commute
~ half-blood prince
~ deathly hallows
~ deathly illness
~ exhaustion

It'll be better now that I'm recovering, I think, and now that I'm back to my normal schedule. Last week I worked two 9-5's, which are not conducive to getting anything done at all. And I forgot my lunch both days, so I couldn't take my writing lunch like I planned. But from now on I only work 3 days a week, noon to 8, 2 to 8, and one 9 to 5. So that will be better. Plus no more marathon travelling sessions during which I forget my laptop at home.

Since I made little to no progress on Meredith's adventure in break up land, here is a present from this new project I've been mulling over (the title came to me first, then the character, then the plot, then everything else, during a long jazz concert this Friday)

I have always hated the United States Government.

Okay, you probably think I’m some kind of batty suicide bombing, flag-burning, anti-American terrorist. Let me assure you, I am not. I just have a lot of negative associations with the various political entities that govern our dear country and its various constituencies

It all started when I was six, and my father sat me on his knee. “Cavender, let me tell you what ‘eminent domain’ is.”

Oh wait, I’ll have to back up a little bit. It really started when I was three and I cried because the fifteen Emily’s and thirty-two Ashley’s in my preschool class ganged up on me and demanded to know where I acquired such and “eewie” name. My mother sat me on her knee: “Cavender Rosenmund McClaren-Smith, let me tell you about ‘women’s rights’.”

Anyway, I'm fully intending on returning to Meredith. It's just that this other idea sprang nearly fully formed out of my head and I'm afraid I'll lose track of it if I don't write some of it down. I already forgot the really good name I had made up for Cavender's sister, and who knows what else.

Well that will do me for now... let me know what you think of the new stuff. I've been writing other stuff, other ideas, during The Year of Meredith, but this is the first time I've put any of it out there to be read.