Perfectly Postitive Monday #4

I have insomnia. This post is coming to you at 5:26am, because I haven’t slept a wink. So I’m a little cranky. But, I’m gonna give you some motherfuckin’ positivity anyway. Let’s do this!

 Writing Life…

Last month I reached an absolute impasse with my novel at chapter nine, because I forgot something that I learned from my writerly hero, Jennifer Crusie.

Internal conflict can help describe character arc but it can’t move story. External conflict moves story. Internal conflict is just a character staring into space, thinking hard.

From chapter nine on, everything I wrote ended up being for a later point in the book.  My characters had chemistry and history but they also had nothing to fight for. Which gives them nothing to lose. Also my hero is too nice.

So I started weaving in a plot point that’s been debated in my writing group. My characters were BFFs since childhood. Then at sixteen, Adelia hit it and quit it, for lack of a better phrase. So it’s fourteen years later and I think my hero is still a bit angry. Not roaring, alpha male angry. But still holding onto that pain and resentful of her suddenly appearing. My group felt like this wasn’t believable or empathetic. Usually I bow to the wisdom of the ladies, but in this case, I’m disagreeing. So rewrote the initial confrontation between the hero and heroine and upped the ante by having him not be Prince Charming. He’s conflicted. Which still isn’t plot, but it’s getting somewhere. So yay! I’m calling it a win.

The Rest of Life…

• My coworker bought me a flying pig from the greeting card store that dances to the Cupid Shuffle because I she knows I collect flying pigs. I cradled it like a baby and made everyone watch it dance. 

• Re-watched season six of Supernatural and discovered that its not as awful as I remembered, provided you fast forward through everything except Soulless Sam being an oversexed sociopath. Which is as fun to type as it is to watch. 

• In February, we paid off our credit cards and started saving for the down payment on a house!

• It’s March now, so winter has to be at least half over. I’ll take it. 

Shit I love…

• Ben & Jerry’s Karamel Sutra Ice Cream. I don’t love ice cream, but damn, it’s so good.

• Kelly Clarkson’s song, Chivas. It’s a love letter to whiskey and a hate letter to an ex-boyfriend. Magical.

• Soulless Sam.